Argumentative ROLES
PROPONENT, OPPONENT, THIRD PARTY

In an argumentative exchange, the participants are part of a complex system of roles and characters, according to which they speak and act. Some of these roles are general; others are specific to the argumentative situation.

1. General interactional roles (not specific to argumentation)

1.1 Roles attached to the “participation framework” (Goffman)

The concept of a participation framework details and clarifies the traditional concept of a verbal exchange between a speaker and one or more listeners. The participation framework is defined as a relationship between two complex speech structures, the production format and the reception format (Goffman, 1981). These concepts are instrumental to analyzing all argumentative interactions, from rhetorical addresses to everyday argumentative interactions. They are relevant to analyzing of the ethos, and polyphonicrespp structure of the argumentative texts.

• Reception format (id., pp. 141-142)

The people who can actually hear a speaker’s words occupy various statuses in relation to these words.

— The addressed participants are the people to whom the words are openly directed, and the pronoun you refers to the addressed participant(s). Everyday group conversations demonstrate that successfully addressing a specific person may require complex maneuvers.

— The ratified participants are the members of the group formed around the ongoing speech event. They may or may not be addressed. In order to get the floor in a discussion, one must be a ratified participant. Ratified, non-addressed participants may be addressed during  the speech event’s development.

In a current argumentative exchange, the referee of the debate, if there is one, is a ratified participant, who will be addressed only as a resource if a crisis looms, or during a planned slot in order to move the debate forward, to evaluate and conclude the session. If the debate is open to a broader audience, audience members are ratified participants but not addressed participants.

In a codified dialectical exchange, the questioner and the respondent are the only ratified and addressed participants. Both participants alternately hold the floor.

In a classical rhetorical address, the audience is ratified and addressed. The difference from the dialectical situation is that the audience does not have an official right to the floor. Nonetheless, the audience may express its reactions with applause or boos (Goffman 1981).

— Overhearers and eavesdroppers. People passing within earshot are non-ratified participants. Overhearers accidentally hear the sounds and words of the conversation, possibly without even listening. Eavesdroppers intentionally spy on the conversation.

• Production Format

Speech is produced by the speaker. Goffman (1981) and Ducrot (1980) have independently shown that the speaker should not be considered to be a unified entity but rather a complex articulation of different discursive personae. In Goffman’s words the Animator, the Author, the Figure and the Principal (id., p. 144; p. 167).

— The Animator (Goffman) is the talking machine, that physically produces the discourse. Similarly, Ducrot redefines the Speaker as “the empirical being” to which all external speech determinants can be attributed, “the psychological or even physiological processes that originate the utterance, the actual intentions and cognitive processes that render the statement possible” (Ducrot 1980, p. 34).

The counterpart of this talking machine in the reception format is the hearing machine: the listeners, and the entire range of ratified and non ratified participants who physically hear the speech and choose listen to it or not (Ducrot 1980, p. 35).

— The Author selects the thoughts to express and the words to express them. A speaker reading a book or quoting another person is the Animator of the words borrowed without being their Author (Schiffrin 1990, p. 242). The pronoun I refers to the Author of the speech (except in quoted speech).

— The Figure corresponds to the discursive self-image of the Author, that is, the ethos.

— The Principal is

(in the legalistic sense) someone whose position is established by the words that are spoken, someone whose beliefs have been told, someone who is committed to what the words say … a person acting under a certain identity, in a certain social role” (Goffman 1987, p. 144). 

“The same individual can very quickly alter the social role in which he is active, even though his capacity as animator and author remains constant” (id., p. 145). 

The same Author can address a student as a teacher, an adult, a citizen, a New Yorker, etc. and so on.
Defined as “someone who believes personally in what is being said and takes the position that is implied in the remarks” (id., p. 167), the Principal plays a key role in the polyphonic space, as the person who takes the responsibility of what is said (Ducrot’s énonciateur, 1980, p. 38), see interaction, dialogue, polyphony.

For example, consider the following statement:

The weather is nice (V1), but I must work (V2)

the Author stages two voices:

— In V1, the voice of someone arguing that a nice weather is a good reason to go for a walk.
— In V2, the voice is that of a another person arguing that having to work is a good reason to stay home.

The decisive point is that, the Principal identifies to voice V2, dropping the argument E1, and validating the argument E2.

There is no intrinsic superiority of argument E2 over E1. The speaker authors both arguments, and, as a Principal, acts upon E2, not E1.

In summary, “the Animator produces talk, the Author creates talk, the Figure is portrayed through talk, and the Principal is responsible for talk” (Schiffrin 1990, p. 241).

1.2 Roles Attached to Different Types and Genres of Speech

To account for the variety of discursive genres, one must introduce new types of roles, such as the narrator and the narratee for storytelling; the expert and the layperson for explanation; and the proponent, the opponent and the third party for argumentation.

Interactional genres bring their own share of professional or occupational roles: seller and customer for shop interactions; teacher and students in classroom interactions; physician and patient for therapeutic interactions.

1.3 Socio-Interactional Roles

Linguistic roles combine with a set of social roles, in which we distinguish (after Rocheblave-Spenlé [1962]):

— Global social roles: gentleman, cool guy, cheerleader, troublemaker, etc.
— Biosocial roles: young/old, male/female/transgender, etc.
— Social class roles: bourgeois, aristocrat, white or blue collar worker, etc.
— Professional roles: farmer, trader, truck driver, etc.
— Community roles: religious believer, member of a trade union, a political party, a sport team, etc.
— Family roles: husband, wife, child, father, uncle, etc.

2. Argument-acting roles: Proponent, Opponent, Third party

The argumentative situation is defined as a three-pole situation, that is to say a three-role situation: Proponent, Opponent and Third Party. Each of these roles corresponds to a specific discursive modality, a discourse of proposition, supported by the proponent, a discourse of opposition, supported by the opponent, and a discourse of doubt or questioning, that defines the Third Party position.

2.1 Proponent and Opponent

In dialectical theory, the terms proponent and opponent are defined, as partners in an argumentative game see dialectic. From an interactive perspective, an argument becomes dialectical when the third party is eliminated and each actor is assigned a role (“you will be the proponent, and I will be the opponent”) that they must assumed for the entire “dialectic round” (Brunschwig 1967). Eliminating the third party goes hand in hand with expelling rhetoric and the establishing a system of objective-rational norms. In a figurative sense, one could say that the third party is then replaced by Reason or Nature—that is, by the rules of truth.

From a rhetorical perspective, the argumentative game is initially defined first as an interaction between a proponent, the speaker, and a third party, the silent audience to be persuaded. The opponent and counter-discourse are not absent, but consigned to the background.

By engaging into a discussion, participants acknowledge the fact that none of them has sufficient power or authority to decide the matter at hand, and that they are engaged in a problematic situation.

2.2 Third Party

Considering that the argumentative question is a full systemic component of argumentative interaction highlights the role of the third party. This figure materializes what is publicly at stake and the contact between the contradictory discourses.

In its prototypical form, an argumentative situation is an interaction between the proponent’speech , the opponent’s counter-discourse, and a third, mediating, interrogative discourse. The third party stabilizes or manages the question, and decides upon the external relevance of the participants’ interventions. Therefore, the argumentative situation, as exemplified in public adversarial exchanges, is a three-role situation. Basic argumentative situations such as political debates and court cases, are tripolar. Argumentative speech is systematically multi-addressed, the addressee is not only, or necessarily, the adversary-interlocutor, but also, in one case the public about to cast their vote, and in the other, the judge about to pronounce a verdict.

Unlike the categorical assertions and denials of the proponent and the opponent, the third party may appear softer and undecided. In reality, the third party refuses to accept either of the opposing proposals or points of view. They ask for more arguments, remaining doubtful and leaving the question open, in the name of making an informed decision. According to the most classical concept of argumentation, the judge is the prototypical figure of the third party. All ratified participants of an argumentative situation who consider that the argumentative forces balanced, or, more subtly, that even if one seems to prevail, the other cannot be considered to be null, are de facto in the third party position. In philosophy, the radicalization and reification of this position is elaborated as methodological skepticism.

Once the third party and the argumentative question are accepted as key elements of the argumentative exchange, the proponent and opponent are granted full responsibility for their arguments. One may answer, “No!” and the other “Yes, of course!” without either of them being systematically accused of manipulation, bad faith or other of fallacious speech.

Institutions may stabilize the argumentative roles and their attribution to individuals. In an ordinary interaction, the argumentative roles do not correspond to permanent roles but rather to footings, (Goffman (987, chapter 3), particularly in that they are labile. Within the same speech turn, the same person can take the role of both the Third party and the Proponent with regard to an issue (affirming a position while expressing a certain degree of doubt about it), or act as the Proponent on one issue and the Opponent on another.

3. Argument-actors [Fr. actants] and Actors [Fr. actors]

The individuals engaged in the argument are the physical participants, or actors of the argumentative situation. When clarification is needed, the term argument-actor (Fr. actant, borrowed from semiotic theory), may be used to refer to the three basic argumentative roles, Proponent, Opponent, Third Party.

Any actor can successively occupy each of the three argument-acting roles (Fr. rôle actantiel), according to all the possible paths. For instance, an actor may abandon his or her discourse of opposition in order to develop a discourse of doubt, switching from the argument-acting role of opponent to that of third party. An argumentative issue remains unsolved as long as the contradiction survives, even if some actors change their point of view. If two actors swap their argument-acting roles–that is, if they convince each other, the issue remains open.

In the case of an argumentative alliance, or co-argumentation, several actors can occupy the same argument-acting position simultaneously; that is, several individuals can produce co-oriented interventions. The study of argumentation should focus both on co-oriented interventions and anti-oriented interventions.

4. Argument is demilitarization

The distinction between argument-actors / actors makes it possible to reconsider the famous and strangely prized slogan “argument is war”, along with its related bellicose metaphors (Lakoff, Johnson 1980). Argument_2 may be a kind of war, albeit with fewer casualties, but argument_1, that is argumentation, is not. The opposition between discourses, that is between argument-actors [Fr. actants], is not necessarily confused with possible collaborations or oppositions between people, that is, between actors [Fr. acteurs]. Argumentative situations are confrontational only when the actors identify themselves with their argumentative roles. In the most obvious case, that of internal deliberation, the same actor can peacefully progress through all the argument-acting positions (argumentative roles). If a group deliberates on a question of common interest, it fortunately happens that the associated members will together examine the various facets of the problem together, that is, the different possible answers to the question and the arguments that support them. During this process, they systematically occupy the different argument-acting positions, without clearly identifying with one of these positions, and without necessarily transforming this process into a war between the actors. An argumentative situation is not inherently polemical; but it can certainly become so when features that define the participants’ identity are involved and put at risk in the discussion.