Argumentation in Prime Minister’s Question Time

Argumentation in Prime Minister’s Question Time

Author: Dima Mohammed

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2018-12-06

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9027263272

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When political actors respond to criticism by pointing at an inconsistency in the critic’s position, a tricky political practice emerges. Turning the criticism back to the critic can be a constructive move that restores coherence, but it may also be a disruptive move that silences the critical voice and obstructs accountability. What distinguishes constructive cases from disruptive ones? This is the question this book sets out to answer. The question is addressed by adopting an argumentative perspective. Argumentation in Prime Minister’s Question Time focuses on the turnabout employed by the British Prime Minister in response to the Leader of the Opposition. The turnabout is characterised as a particular way of strategic manoeuvring. The manoeuvring is analysed and evaluated by combining pragmatic, dialectical and rhetorical insights with considerations from the realm of politics. The outcome is an account of the turnabout’s strategic functions and an assessment guide for evaluating its reasonableness. The book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of argumentation, discourse analysis, communication and rhetoric.


Punch and Judy Politics

Punch and Judy Politics

Author: Ayesha Hazarika

Publisher: Biteback Publishing

Published: 2018-05-17

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1785903586

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Prime Minister's Questions is the bear pit of British politics. Watched and admired around the world, it is often hated at home for bringing out the worst in our politicians. Yet despite successive leaders trying to get away from Punch and Judy politics, it's here to stay. Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton spent five years preparing Ed Miliband for the weekly joust, living through the highs and lows, tension and black humour of the political front line. In this insightful and often hilarious book, including an updated afterword discussing the key events of 2018, they lift the lid on PMQs and what it's really like to ready the leader for combat. Drawing on personal recollections from key players including Tony Blair, David Cameron, Harriet Harman, William Hague and Vince Cable alongside their unique knowledge, Hazarika and Hamilton take you behind the scenes of some of the biggest PMQs moments.


Examining Argumentation in Context

Examining Argumentation in Context

Author: Frans H. van Eemeren

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 9027211183

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"Examining Argumentation in Context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering "contains a selection of papers on strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse. Starting point of all of these contributions is that a satisfactory analysis and evaluation of strategic maneuvering is possible only if the argumentative discourse is first situated in the communicative and interactional context in which it occurs. While some of the contributions present general views with regard to strategic maneuvering, other contributions report on the results of empirical studies, examine strategic maneuvering in a particular legal or political context, or highlight the presentational design of strategic maneuvering. "Examining Argumentation in Context" therefore provides an insightful" "view of recent developments in the research on strategic maneuvering, which is currently prominent in the study of argumentation.


Women, Language and Politics

Women, Language and Politics

Author: Sylvia Shaw

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-05-28

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1107080886

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Investigates the underrepresentation of women in politics, by examining how language use constructs and maintains gender inequalities in political institutions.


An Argumentative Analysis of the Emergence of Issues in Adult-Children Discussions

An Argumentative Analysis of the Emergence of Issues in Adult-Children Discussions

Author: Rebecca G. Schär

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2021-04-15

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 9027259933

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This book traces the issue in argumentative discussions from its emergence to its evolution. The book makes use of naturally occurred data of spoken argumentation to investigate how an issue is raised and possibly negotiated in argumentative discussions between young children (aged 2 to 6 years) and adults. The author proposes a typology of the emergence of issues based on the argumentative agency of the interlocutors. Moreover, the investigation sheds light on how issues evolve through negotiation among the involved interlocutors and how issues may be related to the interlocutors’ endoxa. By applying an interdisciplinary approach including argumentation theory (the pragma-dialectical model of a critical discussion and the Argumentum Model of Topics) as well as sociocultural developmental psychology this work allows for a careful consideration of the many aspects that come into play when young children start or engage in an argumentative discussions with adults.


Responding to Questions at Press Conferences

Responding to Questions at Press Conferences

Author: Peng Wu

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2023-03-15

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9027253269

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Responding to Questions at Press Conferences makes clear how the spokespersons at China’s diplomatic press conferences maneuver strategically in defining the issues in the empirical counterpart of the confrontation stage when responding to the journalists’ questions and how this confrontational maneuvering is meant to be instrumental in convincing the intended audience. The detailed and systematic analysis of the various modes of confrontational maneuvering adopted by the spokespersons elucidate how China’s recently established “progressive” diplomatic style is shaped by its spokespersons’ argumentative discourse.


Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest

Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest

Author: Ilaria Fiorentini

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2024-10-15

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9027246564

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This book aims to address a gap in the existing literature on the relationship between vagueness and ambiguity, as well as on their differences and similarities, both in synchrony and diachrony, and taking into consideration their relation to language use. The book is divided into two parts, which address specific and broader research questions from different perspectives. The former part examines the differences between ambiguity and vagueness from a bird-eye perspective, with a particular focus on their respective functions and roles in language change. It also presents innovative linguistic resources and tools for the study of these phenomena. The second part contains case studies on vagueness and ambiguity in language change and use. It considers different strategies and languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Medieval Latin, and Old Italian. The readership for this volume is broad, encompassing scholars in a range of disciplines, including pragmatics, spoken discourse, conversation analysis, discourse genres (political, commercial, notarial discourse), corpus studies, language change, pragmaticalization, and language typology.


Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective

Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective

Author: Frans H. van Eemeren

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-27

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 3319953818

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The book offers a compact but comprehensive introductory overview of the crucial components of argumentation theory. In presenting this overview, argumentation is consistently approached from a pragma-dialectical perspective by viewing it pragmatically as a goal-directed communicative activity and dialectically as part of a regulated critical exchange aimed at resolving a difference of opinion. As a result, the book also systematically explains how the constitutive parts of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, which are discussed in a number of separate publications, hang together. The following crucial topics are discussed: (1) argumentation theory as a discipline; (2) the meta-theoretical principles of pragma-dialectics; (3) the model of a critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion; (4) fallacies as violations of a code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse; (5) descriptive research of argumentative reality; (6) analysis as theoretically-motivated reconstruction; (7) strategic manoeuvring aimed at combining achieving effectiveness with maintaining reasonableness; (8) the conventionalization of argumentative practices; (9) prototypical argumentative patterns; (10) pragma-dialectics amidst other approaches. Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective is clearly written and makes argumentation theory understandable to all scholars and advanced students interested in argumentation research.


Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse

Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse

Author: Frans H. van Eemeren

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 9027211191

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In "Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse," Frans H. van Eemeren" "brings together the dialectical and the rhetorical dimensions of argumentation by introducing the concept of strategic maneuvering. Strategic maneuvering refers to the arguer s continual efforts to reconcile aiming for effectiveness with being reasonable. It takes place in all stages of argumentative discourse and manifests itself simultaneously in the choices that are made from the topical potential available at a particular stage, in adaptation to audience demand, and in the use of specific presentational devices. Strategic maneuvering derails when in the specific context in which the discourse takes place a rule for critical discussion has been violated, so that a fallacy has been committed. Van Eemeren makes clear that extending the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation by taking account of strategic maneuvering leads to a richer and more precise method for analyzing and evaluating argumentative discourse."