Argumentation as a communicative interaction

It is necessary now to point at some more general assumptions about the process of communication, of which argumentation is considered a relevant component. The reasons justifying such framing are twofold, and refer to two different levels of zooming in the analysis.

On the one hand, argumentation should be considered in its proper context of the communicative interaction, as it is in general widely acknowledged in argumentation studies²¹². Thus, although the argumentative analysis of texts requires a necessary abstraction process that focuses on the argumentative aspects of the discourse mode of argumentation, this analysis needs to be integrated in a perspective that considers the whole development of the communicative interaction. Indeed, even the selection of argumentatively relevant traits of the discussion can only be adequately fulfilled only if the goals of the communicative interaction are considered. Relational aspects, repetitions, phatic communication and other features may be judged relevant or irrelevant from the argumentative point of view also in relation to the contextual factors (see also par. 1.3.1).

On the other hand, a second reason for introducing some notions of communicative analysis concerns a micro-level. As argumentation also includes the exploitation of semantic nuances, ambiguities, as well as rhetorical aspects at the level of speech acts, uses of metaphors and other elocutive aspects, the analysis should not neglect specific linguistic aspects, which may have more or less direct argumentative functions.

212 See van Eemeren, Houtlosser and Snoeck-Henkemans (2007: 3): “Pragma-dialectics on the other hand acknowledges explicitly that argumentative discourse is part of a communicative activity. That is why the argumentation that is advanced is always analyzed in relation to the way in which the verbal interaction between the participants in the communication process proceeds. Bringing forwards standpoints and argumentation and responding to the (real or assumed) standpoints and argumentation of others are viewed as socially motivated moves in a collective process of conflict management”.

5.2.5.1 Accounting for the communicative dimension: the perspective of Congruity theory

Congruity theory, already introduced in Chapter 4 for the semantic analysis of conflict, starts from the interpretation of texts as communicative actions (see in this relation the model of action provided in Rigotti 2003 and presented in Chapter 4), and interprets the meaning of such a communicative action as a hierarchy of semantic-pragmatic predicates. This hierarchy goes from lexicalised units, such as the ones bound to conflict, to higher level pragmatic predicates, which are analysed in the same terms of presuppositions and implications²¹³. Connective predicates are to be interpreted as relational predicates (see Gobber, Gatti and Cigada 2006) assuming among their arguments text sequences, speaker, hearer and context. The structure of a connective predicate can thus be represented as follows:

Figure 21: The structure of a connective predicate (Rigotti 2005a: 83)

The connective predicate relates all these arguments to each other, insofar as it

“characterises the utterance by specifying what the speaker does to the addressee with her utterance” (Rigotti 2005a: 82). The pragmatic nature of the interpretation of texts proposed by Congruity theory clearly appears from this definition. This account is pragmatic both because, as said, it rests on the interpretation of texts as communicative actions, and because it involves the context of communication as an argument of the connective (see also Rigotti and Rocci 2006). The hierarchical network of predicates,

213 See Rigotti (2005a: 81): “Moreover, in Rigotti and Rocci (2001), it is argued that not only we can explain the different lexical or grammatical presupposition triggers in terms of predicates that impose presuppositions on their arguments, but it is also possible to treat in similar fashion the coherence and illocutionary felicity of entire texts”.

ConPred

Hearer (U+1 …) (Hr)

Speaker

(Sp) (….U -1) / XCG U0

Presuppositions related either to single arguments or to n-uples of them

thus, is ultimately dominated by the predicate that more directly evokes the communicative meaning of the text.

Congruity theory can be virtually applied to any communicative text, including argumentative texts (Rigotti 2005a). Now, the instruments for analysing more specifically argumentative sequences have already been introduced; as for Congruity theory, it is assumed in the present research because it allows a broader perspective on the analysed data and therefore can serve as a basis for considering relevant communicative aspects that integrate the argumentative account of mediation that this research is focused on. In fact, the mediation interaction is clearly a text where more than a single sequence is present, and though the argumentative nature of the mediation interaction has been proven, not only argumentative passages are present.

In particular, mediation corresponds to a dialogue, i.e. to “a communicative interaction where the participants can (and are expected to) alternate, more or less regularly or frequently, the roles of speaker and hearer” (Rigotti 2005a: 91). Now, as it has been shown in Rocci (2005), Congruity theory can be applied to monological as well as to dialogical texts. In the latter case, it is possible to interpret and analyse in great detail by means of the notion of connective predicates also cooperative local moves that have been called dialogue games, and which involve a common goal between the interlocutors beyond their individual goals. As Rocci (2005: 105) shows, connective predicates are less abstract than dialogue games, as they allow analysing the functioning of the single communicative move. However, the hypothesis can be made that dialogue games, which are “considerably more abstract” (ibid.), regroup classes of connective predicates.

Significantly, Congruity theory, interpreting texts as hierarchies of predicates, allows focusing on the fact that the ultimate action performed through the text itself – coinciding with the connective predicate of the highest level – involves the participants in the communicative interaction themselves (see the roles of speaker and hearer in Figure 21 above). Not coincidentally, Rigotti (1993: 48-49) pointed out that the most important change on social reality produced by communication operates on the subjectivity of the interlocutors. Elaborating on the implications of this at the relationship level, Cigada (2006: 140) speaks of emotive congruity (congruité emotive), namely the possibility and capability to emotionally participate in the communicative exchange, as a constitutive dimension of communication. Thus, the evaluation of the congruity of the arguments of the connective predicate dominating a given communicative text must also take into account the complexity of the human subjects involved in communication.

It is clear that such a delicate balance becomes even more complex in the case of communication in mediation, which follows a conflictual phase (see par. 4.2.) in which

the conflicting parties are certainly lacking congruity at the relational level. In fact, the escalation of a conflict is a process by which the parties’ relationship is gradually deteriorated, up to the moment in which each party only wants to eliminate his/her adversary and considers him/her to be the real problem (the real origin and source of the conflict). In such a situation, we are certainly far away from the ideal of cooperative communication, and from a well-balanced dialogue from the emotive point of view²¹⁴. Thus, the importance for the mediator to be able to cope with emotive aspects and to be empathic with both parties has often been highlighted²¹⁵. Such capability should be understood as aimed at enabling both parties to “find their own place” as human beings within the communicative process²¹⁶.