Page 155 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
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political discourse and argumentation profiles 155
Party B: Depicts incumbent party as having bad policies, and attacks
character of its members; wants to establish alternative goals; sees poli-
cies of government as indication of corruption; appeals to statistics and
public opinion; puts priority on criticizing opponents over promoting
own policies; initiates lines of discussion (criticism) more so than re-
sponding to the ideas of others, indicating an attempt to control the dis-
cussion.
Party C: Primarily concerned with social justice; makes case by
drawing comparisons to other more vivid injustices; appeals to sympa-
thy of electorate; initiates lines of argument stressing value of its own
policies and is somewhat critical of incumbent and other opponent; tries
to change agenda to discuss its own issues; depicts itself as having a high
moral character.
Notice that these argumentation profiles are descriptive, not eval-
uative. Some argumentation workers would go further and, from a dis-
tant point of view, evaluate the arguments and argumentation of each of
the agents, and thus create an evaluative argumentation profile of agents.
Christian Kock, for example, urges that the argumentation of politi-
cians should be evaluated from the point of view of whether it meets
the needs of the voting public in its quest to make an informed decision
at the ballot box (Kock, 2011: 14). However, until the methodology of
making argumentation profiles is better developed it may be advisable
not to take a position on the quality of individual agents’ argumentative
behaviour because that can be interpreted as partisanship and sink our
scientific aspirations. Instead we should lay out our findings in vivid and
accessible detail, letting the public make of it what it will. My anticipa-
tion is that, properly packaged, we can catch its eye.
5. Summary
I began by suggesting that one way in which argumentation schol-
ars could distinguish their work from that of their colleagues, and show
their usefulness to society, was to construct argumentation profiles of
politicians’ behaviour during election campaigns. I have suggested some
of the concepts that could be the building blocks of such profiles. Why
are such profiles of value?
A. Value to voters. Voters may want to take profiles into considera-
tion when making their decisions at the ballot box: not only do we want
to support politicians who advocate policies we approve of, we also want
to elect people who will conduct themselves in an intellectually capable
Party B: Depicts incumbent party as having bad policies, and attacks
character of its members; wants to establish alternative goals; sees poli-
cies of government as indication of corruption; appeals to statistics and
public opinion; puts priority on criticizing opponents over promoting
own policies; initiates lines of discussion (criticism) more so than re-
sponding to the ideas of others, indicating an attempt to control the dis-
cussion.
Party C: Primarily concerned with social justice; makes case by
drawing comparisons to other more vivid injustices; appeals to sympa-
thy of electorate; initiates lines of argument stressing value of its own
policies and is somewhat critical of incumbent and other opponent; tries
to change agenda to discuss its own issues; depicts itself as having a high
moral character.
Notice that these argumentation profiles are descriptive, not eval-
uative. Some argumentation workers would go further and, from a dis-
tant point of view, evaluate the arguments and argumentation of each of
the agents, and thus create an evaluative argumentation profile of agents.
Christian Kock, for example, urges that the argumentation of politi-
cians should be evaluated from the point of view of whether it meets
the needs of the voting public in its quest to make an informed decision
at the ballot box (Kock, 2011: 14). However, until the methodology of
making argumentation profiles is better developed it may be advisable
not to take a position on the quality of individual agents’ argumentative
behaviour because that can be interpreted as partisanship and sink our
scientific aspirations. Instead we should lay out our findings in vivid and
accessible detail, letting the public make of it what it will. My anticipa-
tion is that, properly packaged, we can catch its eye.
5. Summary
I began by suggesting that one way in which argumentation schol-
ars could distinguish their work from that of their colleagues, and show
their usefulness to society, was to construct argumentation profiles of
politicians’ behaviour during election campaigns. I have suggested some
of the concepts that could be the building blocks of such profiles. Why
are such profiles of value?
A. Value to voters. Voters may want to take profiles into considera-
tion when making their decisions at the ballot box: not only do we want
to support politicians who advocate policies we approve of, we also want
to elect people who will conduct themselves in an intellectually capable
