Page 71 - 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
P. 71
he linguistic-discursive creation of the speaker’s ethos for the
sake of persuasion: a key aspect of rhetoric and argumentation 71
what Aristotle understood by it. If, however, we follow Aristotle’s con-
cept of ethos, which we will do, it will be interesting to find out how ethos
comes about in discourse in general and in political speeches in particu-
lar and this is what we will analyse in the applied part of this brief study.
2.1. Argumentation vs. Rhetoric
One of the more recent definitions of argumentation which has al-
most become a modern classic at least in the francophone world is the
one by Anscombre and Ducrot (1997) according to which a speaker ar-
gues for or against something when he or she makes an utterance or
various utterances which are meant to admit another one.2 The result-
ing chains or argumentative concatenations become an essential means
for creating coherence (Ducrot, 1995: 85; Maingueneau, 1991: 228) and
coherence as well as cohesion as fundamental textual criteria are indis-
pensable for successful argumentation. The overall pragmatic goal of ar-
gumentation, however, for which the textual criteria of coherence and
cohesion are prerequisites, is making the addressee or listener adopt a
conclusion which originally was not his or hers (Danblon, 2002: 13).
What is important is that the sender skilfully presents one, two or more
premises which ideally make the addressee draw his or her own conclu-
sions. In this case it is not the sender who directly suggests or tries to
impose his or her own conclusions but he or she manages to make the
addressee come to the conclusion which has been the sender’s from the
beginning. What is more, it is not only the specific premises that make
for the respective conclusion. In one way or another it is the whole text
which contributes to the resulting conclusions (Vignaux, 2004: 113) as
it shapes concepts and attributes specific meanings to words, syntagmas
and textual building blocks, the intrinsic semantic content of isolated
words being minimal. However, usually the textual surface is not com-
plete which means that either one or more of the premises or the con-
clusion are not explicated. Aristotle himself pointed out that common
premises and shared knowledge should not be explicitly stated (Amossy,
2006: 164). What is left implicit, however, is far from being a textual
blank without any function (Maingueneau, 1991: 234). On the contra-
ry, it is the addressee’s task to activate his or her knowledge to make the
seemingly fragmentary argumentation coherent and complete. Upon
adding the missing links and thereby completing the argumentation
2 “Un locuteur fait une argumentation lorsqu’il présente un énoncé E1 (ou un ensemble d’énoncés)
comme destiné à en faire admettre un autre (ou un ensemble d’autres) E2. Notre thèse est qu’il y a
dans la langue des contraintes régissant cette présentation.” (Anscombre and Ducrot, 1997: 8)
sake of persuasion: a key aspect of rhetoric and argumentation 71
what Aristotle understood by it. If, however, we follow Aristotle’s con-
cept of ethos, which we will do, it will be interesting to find out how ethos
comes about in discourse in general and in political speeches in particu-
lar and this is what we will analyse in the applied part of this brief study.
2.1. Argumentation vs. Rhetoric
One of the more recent definitions of argumentation which has al-
most become a modern classic at least in the francophone world is the
one by Anscombre and Ducrot (1997) according to which a speaker ar-
gues for or against something when he or she makes an utterance or
various utterances which are meant to admit another one.2 The result-
ing chains or argumentative concatenations become an essential means
for creating coherence (Ducrot, 1995: 85; Maingueneau, 1991: 228) and
coherence as well as cohesion as fundamental textual criteria are indis-
pensable for successful argumentation. The overall pragmatic goal of ar-
gumentation, however, for which the textual criteria of coherence and
cohesion are prerequisites, is making the addressee or listener adopt a
conclusion which originally was not his or hers (Danblon, 2002: 13).
What is important is that the sender skilfully presents one, two or more
premises which ideally make the addressee draw his or her own conclu-
sions. In this case it is not the sender who directly suggests or tries to
impose his or her own conclusions but he or she manages to make the
addressee come to the conclusion which has been the sender’s from the
beginning. What is more, it is not only the specific premises that make
for the respective conclusion. In one way or another it is the whole text
which contributes to the resulting conclusions (Vignaux, 2004: 113) as
it shapes concepts and attributes specific meanings to words, syntagmas
and textual building blocks, the intrinsic semantic content of isolated
words being minimal. However, usually the textual surface is not com-
plete which means that either one or more of the premises or the con-
clusion are not explicated. Aristotle himself pointed out that common
premises and shared knowledge should not be explicitly stated (Amossy,
2006: 164). What is left implicit, however, is far from being a textual
blank without any function (Maingueneau, 1991: 234). On the contra-
ry, it is the addressee’s task to activate his or her knowledge to make the
seemingly fragmentary argumentation coherent and complete. Upon
adding the missing links and thereby completing the argumentation
2 “Un locuteur fait une argumentation lorsqu’il présente un énoncé E1 (ou un ensemble d’énoncés)
comme destiné à en faire admettre un autre (ou un ensemble d’autres) E2. Notre thèse est qu’il y a
dans la langue des contraintes régissant cette présentation.” (Anscombre and Ducrot, 1997: 8)
