This paper serves as an introduction to the special issue on argumentative patterns in discourse, more in particular on argumentative patterns with pragmatic argumentation as a main argument that are prototypical of argumentative discourse in certain communicative activity types in the political, the legal, the medical, and the academic domain. It situates the studies of argumentative patterns reported in these papers in the pragma-dialectical research program. In order to be able to do so, it is first explained in which consecutive (...) stages the pragma-dialectical theorizing has developed, what the study of argumentative patterns involves, and why the identification of argumentative patterns represents a vital stage in the development of pragma-dialectics. The description of the theoretical innovations that are introduced and the exposition of their relationship with the standard and extended pragma-dialectical theory create a conceptual and terminological framework for understanding the background and the rationale of the current research projects. (shrink)

“Reasonable hostility” is a norm of communicative conduct initially developed by studying public exchanges in education governance meetings in local U.S. communities. In this paper I consider the norm’s usefulness for and applicability to a U.S. state-level public hearing about a bill to legalize civil unions. Following an explication of reasonable hostility and grounded practical theory, the approach to inquiry that guides my work, I de-scribe Hawaii’s 2009, 18-hour pub-lic hearing and analyze selected segments of it. I show that this (...) par-ticular public hearing raised de-mands for testifiers on the anti-civil union side of the argument that rea-sonable hostility does not do a good job of addressing. Development of a norm of communication conduct for this practice, as well as others, must engage with the culture and time-specific beliefs that a society holds, beliefs that will shape not only how to argue but what may be argued and what must be assumed about particular categories of persons. (shrink)

Some conspicuous characteristics of argumentation as we all know this phenomenon from our shared everyday experiences are in my view vital to its theoretical treatment because they should have methodological consequences for the way in which argumentation research is conducted. To start with, argumentation is in the first place a communicative act complex, which is realized by making functional verbal communicative moves.

How do Dutch people let each other know that they disagree? What do they say when they want to resolve their difference of opinion by way of an argumentative discussion? In what way do they convey that they are convinced by each other’s argumentation? How do they criticize each other’s argumentative moves? Which words and expressions do they use in these endeavors? By answering these questions this short essay provides a brief inventory of the language of argumentation in Dutch.

The aim of this paper is to describe the way in which argumentative patterns come into being in plenary debate over legislative issues in the European Parliament. What kind of argumentative patterns are to be expected within this macro context? It is shown that the argumentative patterns that come into being in legislative debate in the European Parliament depend for the most part on the problem-solving argumentation that is put forward in the opening speech by the rapporteur of the parliamentary (...) committee report. This argumentation can be pragmatic problem-solving argumentation or complex problem-solving argumentation. The most important prototypical argumentative patterns are investigated in the argumentation put forward by the Members of parliament. This investigation is based on an inventory of the arguments that can in principle be used to support or attack the initial problem-solving argumentation put forward by the rapporteur. (shrink)

This paper discusses the ways in which argumentative discourse prototypically manifests itself. As a consequence of the institutional preconditions applying to the strategic manoeuvring taking place in specific communicative activity types, certain context-dependent argumentative patterns of standpoints, argument schemes and argumentation structures can be observed. Because of their interest in the extent to which argumentative discourse is context-dependent, pragma-dialecticians are out to discover such specific patterns. As a case in point, the authors discuss some institutionally motivated argumentative patterns in parliamentary (...) debate in the European Parliament. (shrink)