Relevance and digressions in argumentative discussion: A pragmatic approach

Relevance and Digressions in Argumentative Discussion:A Pragmatic Approachl

SCOTT JACOBS AND SALLY JACKSON

Department of CommunicationUniversity of ArizonaTucson, AZ 85718U.S.A.

ABSTRACT: Digressions in argumentative discussion are a kind of failure of relevance.Examination of what actual cases look like reveals several properties of argumentativerelevance: (1) The informational relevance of propositions to the truth value of aconclusion should be distinguished from the pragmatic relevance of argumentative acts tothe task of resolving a disagreement. (2) Pragmatic irrelevance is a collaborativephenomenon. It does not just short-circuit reasoning; it encourages a failure to take up thedemands of an argumentative task. (3) Pragmatic irrelevance can occur not simply by theabsence of a connection between what is said and some standpoint in dispute, but also bythe presence of a connection between what is said and a competing use of the informa-tion. (4) Pragmatic relevance must be accomplished through communicative action.

KEY WORDS: Argument, coherence, conversation analysis, dialogue, digression,discourse, pragmatics, relevance, speech acts.

Argumentation theory has lately taken a turn from treating arguments asindividually produced units of proof toward treating arguments as interactionallyemergent structures organized around the function of managing disagreement.To see argumentation as interactionally emergent is to recognize its collabora-tive character and to locate its important features in procedures rather than inproducts. To see argumentation in functional terms is to see its design as anadaptation to the demands of the task of managing disagreement. A functionalanalysis sees structure in the relationships among interactional goals, actionstaken to accomplish goals, and the use of information to perform these actions(Jacobs and Jackson, 1983; Jackson, Jacobs, and Rossi, 1987). This view ofargumentation, typified by the pragma-dialectical model (van Eemeren andGrootendorst, 1984) and by our own closely related discourse analytic work(Jacobs and Jackson, 1989), suggests a particular angle of approach to thequestion of relevance.

Most serious discussions of relevance in argumentation seem to focus on whatBlair terms "premise-relevance": the bearing of a premise on the acceptability orunacceptability of a conclusion (e.g., Blair, 1989; Walton, 1982). Although thereare many ways of approaching premise-relevance, the formulation of theproblem itself as being about premises shapes the accounts offered as solutionsto the problem: These approaches seek relevance in semantic and logicalconnections among propositions.

Argumentation 6: 161-176, 1992.© 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.


We believe that a complete analysis of argumentative relevance will have togo beyond propositions to make a distinction between "information relevance"and "pragmatic relevance." The distinction is one that parallels Searle's (1969,p. 30) distinction between propositional content and the illocutionary act inwhich it plays a part.

By information relevance, we mean the bearing - in-principle - of informa-tion on deciding the truth (or more generally, the acceptability) of someproposition. This concept of information relevance is related to (though not thesame as) Blair's concept of premise-relevance: Information relevance ispremise-relevance, minus the presupposed use of the information to support orchallenge some proposition put forward in a conclusion. The concept ofinformation relevance resides in the same domain as concepts such as proposi-tional inference and truth semantics.

Information is not always introduced into a discussion as a premise, and evenwhen it is, it often bears on many possible conclusions. The substance of suchinformation may come from facts alluded to, feelings revealed, circumstancesmutually known, etc. Information becomes part of an individual argument whenmanaged in a certain way (to support or challenge a conclusion). But even whenit only has an in-principle bearing on the acceptability of some proposition, itcan have information relevance whether or not it also is used for this purpose.

By pragmatic relevance, we mean the use of information to justify or refute acontested standpoint. To be pragmatically relevant, information must beconveyed in a conversational move, where that move is adapted to the task ofresolving a disagreement. Pragmatics involves the management of informationwith respect to a purpose. The key to seeing this distinction is recognizing thatinformation relevant to concluding the truth value of a proposition can bepresented in discussion (or at least, extracted from it) without it being used forthe purpose of establishing that truth value.

In a recent study of digressions, we examined the interactional processesleading to irrelevance in argumentative discussion (Jacobs, Jackson, Steams, andHall, 1991). We concluded in that study that utterances advanced in the courseof argumentative discussion are laden with potential for both relevant andirrelevant elaboration. We found that digression typically comes about not justthrough failure of the utterances advanced to bear on the issues at hand, but alsothrough a refocusing of attention away from the argumentative potential of theutterances and toward some other potential they present.

Our plan in this paper is to analyze a further set of such digressions tohighlight some aspects of pragmatic relevance in argumentation. We willexamine transcribed records of what was said, in sequence, and we will considerdifferent perspectives on the underlying organization of what was said in eachcase. A theme to be developed is that in many digressions, the informationintroduced into the discussion by each party could be used relevantly - in a waythat responds to issues underlying the disagreement - but the information isframed and presented in a way that strongly signals some other use that ispragmatically irrelevant.

162

RELEVANCE AND DIGRESSIONS

DIGRESSIONS IN ARGUMENTATIVE DISCUSSIONS

The digressions we will be examining are examples drawn from recordeddisputes over child custody and visitation between divorced or divorcingparents. The disputes occurred within court-ordered third party mediationsessions held prior to formal court hearings.2 These disputes are particularlyuseful as data because there is a clear decision-making framework (developmentof a custody and visitation arrangement that is in the best interests of thechildren) overlaid with other interests brought to the situation by the divorcingparents. There are, in these sorts of mediation sessions, numerous breakdowns ofone sort or another, and these breakdowns provide a rich source of insight intothe kinds of things that can go wrong in practical argumentation.

Perhaps the most clear-cut way in which digressions appear in these media-tion sessions is through chains of argument that seem to lose track of the pointof finding mutually agreeable custody/visitation arrangements. These chainsoften appear driven primarily by responsiveness to local issues that emerge fromthe immediately preceding turns, leaving suspended the broader issues thatostensibly motivate the discussion. The digressions seem to reflect disputants'preoccupation with censuring and blaming the other party and with defendingthemselves against attributions of moral failure that might be formed from thearguments. The chaining out of argument, objection, denial, and counter-objection can often be heard as primarily a series of insults, threats, complaints,accusations, justifications, excuses, and other morally loaded speech acts.

Thus, successive moves in a chain of this kind exhibit a general failure topursue, or at least show attention to, the broader purposes of the discussion.What is most striking about these digressions, however, is that the material fromwhich they are fashioned often contains the sort of information that could beshaped and taken up in pragmatically relevant ways.

These features are apparent in Example 1. The episode begins with themediator (M) asking the wife (W) to evaluate the husband's (H) custodyproposal.3 In turn 102 W gives reason to reject H's proposal. In turn 103 Hanswers W's argument by formulating her disadvantages as necessary dif-ficulties for the daughter's (Vanessa) ultimate good. He does so, however, in away that compares Vanessa with their eldest daughter - a suspiciouslygratuitous comparison laden with moral implications for the parental roles ofboth H and W since the eldest daughter has been living with H since the divorcewhile Vanessa has not. The implication is that H is responsible for the eldestdaughter being "a good respectable mature adult."

In 104 it is this formulation that W addresses rather than directly focusing onthe custody proposal. And hereafter the disputants chain out in cycles of locallyfocused attacks and defenses, returning only intermittently to address the issue athand (115-119; 142). Notice that it takes an intervention by the mediator in turn157 to return to a more direct focus on the question of custody.

163


Example 14

101 M: Tammy what do you ( ) at this point

102 W: I think I think it will be worse on Vanessa now ifshe goes back and I you'll have your hands full=

103 H: =I know I will. This is the whole program you have to stand up and becounted you have for fight for what's right. Vanessa needs help and she'sgoing to have to battle this through to be a good respectable mature adultlike our number one daughter is.

104 W: Oh she's a mature adult. You come over to my house to get in a argumentwith my husband and she kicks him in the face. That's mature? Hey waitjust a minute here. That's not very mature if you ask me. Am I right orwrong?

105 H: Well I ( ) cause you had Vanessa down on the ground beating her up=106 W: =You no, no, no. You ask Vanessa that107 H: Oh yes all your witness neighbors108 W: That's right109 H: The advantage I have in my favor is they were going to sell their home last

year cause all the neighbors hate their guts. They can't stand them[

110 W: Not mine not mine111 H: Well let's see when they get into court=112 W: =I beg your pardon. You see I always get threatened. It's we'll see when we

get into court[

113 H: Well I have the witnesses coming. They're her neighbors not mine114 W: I know. You've threatened your son too. Told him you were going to turn

him into the IRS. That's a cruel thing to do. You are his father. I just can'thurt anybody I can't Sorry=

115 H: You're doing Vanessa and that's the way I feel about it

116 W: I said if she wants to come back and live with you Iwouldn't stand in her way=

117 H: =It's not a case of what she wants you know what she's gonna say=118 W: =She's sixteen going on seventeen years old=119 H: =She's sixteen going on nine. She has problems and she needs help120 W: Is that the only reason you want her? I mean come on now or is it because

you don't want to pay child support?121 H: I know this erroneous

statement was going to come up let me point this out to ya. When Vanessadid come over to me and she signed all the papers all the papers over to menow I have a choice of whether I want to pay child support. This is a greatthing about history you can't change what's happened in the past. WhenVanessa come and live with me I didn't stop her allowance. I could have Igive half of it to her for weekly allowance I put the other half in the bank forher future education or whatever she wanted to use it for when she gotolder. Her mother never comes and visited her one time in the year and ahalf No somebody tell me I don't want to pay child=

I[ 122 W: Wait

164


123 H: =support I did it of my own volition nobody forced me to[

124 W: I didn't wait wait wait I didn't come and visitVanessa in a year and a half?

125 H: That's right126 W: Wait just a minute okay? How many times did I go over to the house and

take Vanessa to the ( )? Did I or did I not go to your house and sendVanessa a birthday present you didn't even give her nothing for Christmasthis year.=

127 H: =After the suicide attempt you're referring to?128 W: Yes.129 H: No I'm speaking up to the point of the suicide attempt=130 W: =She wasn't speaking to me131 H: Oh132 W: I made the first attempt to go over there133 H: Why wasn't she speaking to you?134 W: Because we got into an argument in the front yard she called me a bitch135 H: Holds a grudge a long time doesn't she a year and a half136 W: Me hold a grudge?137 H: No Vanessa138 W: Not me139 H: If that's the problem how come she held a grudge for a year and a half?140 W: Why isn't Becky speaking to me now did I ever do anything to hurt her?141 H: Because she sees what's happening142 W: The only thing I want to say I don't want to argue with you okay?

Whatever's best for Vanessa143 H: My oldest daughter first words were144 W: You act like a professor that's the whole that's what the kids say. God Mom

I can't talk to Dad he goes above my head145 H: That's ( ) I wish my oldest daughter could be here so you could interview

her she doesn't feel that way. I think most of it stems from the oldestdaughter was more or less raised with me and the other two were raised withher. Here again I think it's guidelines and uh (

[ ] [146 W: The oldest daughter the oldest daughter was raised by

you now wait just a minute you know I raised her from the time uh she wasborn

147 H: I'm uh well let me clarify that uh from of divorce148 W: And how old was she when we got one? Eighteen

[149 H: Eighteen150 W: I raised her from the time she was born until she was eighteen. But you're

the one that raised her right?=151 H: =No no I'm the one that give her guidelines and guidance from the time she

was eighteen I'm speaking from the time of divorce[

152 W: Becky's a different person Becky's a different person thanVanessa.

153 H: Why why are people different?154 W: I don't know why we are different

[155 H: Isn't it the way they are parented? What guidelines they are

presented with? How they're led through their adolescent years?((PAUSE))

165

SCOTt JACOBS AND SALLY JACKSON

156 W: I don't see how[

157 M: Tammy you're saying that uh what is in the best interest of Vanessa?

Manifestly, much of this exchange has the appearance of petty squabbling.Any relevance of what is said to the purpose of arriving at a custody arrange-ment that is in the best interests of the child seems purely coincidental. But eventhough it is not obviously being used in this way, much of the information that ispresented in this exchange could have been organized and used in a pragmati-cally relevant fashion.

The question of whether or not Becky is a "good respectable mature adult"(103/104) and who deserves credit for Becky's character (145-156) could beused to establish whether or not H is best able to care for Vanessa. Whether ornot W "had Vanessa down on the ground beating her up" (105/106) could beused to argue whether or not W would be a fit parent, as could informationconcerning whether or not all the neighbors of W and her current husband "hatetheir guts" (109-111/113). Likewise, the claim that H uses threats against W andhis son (112/114) could be used to argue that H has a character that makes himunsuitable to be custodial parent for Vanessa. Or again, whether or not H ismore concerned with minimizing child support payments than with securingVanessa's welfare (120-123), or why Vanessa and Becky were not on speakingterms with W (121-141) could be used to establish who would be the bestcustodial parent for Vanessa.

If we are willing to tidy things up a bit and fill in missing links, we canreconstruct fairly reasonable lines of argument from the information presented.There is little doubt that the information introduced and disputed by H and W isrelevant to the issue of who should and should not have custody of Vanessa. Butneither party gives positive indications that this is the point of the informationthey supply.

Part of what contributes to the generally chaotic quality of the discussion inExample 1 is the preoccupation of both W and H with dramatizing and respond-ing to the character implications of whatever issue is raised. The sensitivity ofboth parties to the potential use of information to censure, blame, and shiftmoral responsibility highlights the importance of how information is framed inspeech acts and taken up in subsequent interaction.

In the example above, disputants could have ignored the character implica-tions of what was said. A great deal of what is problematic about (potential)irrelevance in ordinary argumentation is that it gets taken up and ratified inresponse. The appearance of irrelevance becomes magnified over successiveturns. Example 2 further illustrates how procedural breakdowns can result fromthe way in which arguments are framed and taken up.

166


Example 2

398 W: I still have my basic feelings, that maybe at some point, something like thiscould be worked out but I don't, feel at this time

399 H: Isn't this kind of a method, uh I-aren't you basic feelings ((PAUSE)) basically trying to punish me, asopposed to what the children ((PAUSE)) (that's all)[ 1

400 W: No it's not not trying to punish you ((PAUSE)) I am not trying topunish you at all I, think you, I'd be punishing myself by going withsomething like this at this time=

401 H: =why402 W: Number one I know your involvement with the children ((PAUSE)) and

how you have stated in the past you would be involved and you would docertain things and then you do not

403 H: Like what404 W: Like homework schoolwork ((PAUSE)) Also too, I do not feel that you're

mentally stable at this point in your life405 H: I don't feel you're mentally stable either406 W: Okay ((PAUSE)) um, so maybe we should go for the psychiatric examina-

tions ((PAUSE)) I'm more inclined to do that I've asked John to go tocounseling for years, and he's refused I have been in counseling

407 H: Vivian I recommended a marriage counselor and (you said no) and yourattitude was you didn't want to go it was a waste of time

[ ]408 W: Not at that time, not at that point

I didn't want the marriage

409 H: When we went to marriage counsel on our first separationand he said a few negative things to you, you, immediately dropped out.

410 W: We didn't go to a marriage counselor[ ]

411 H: Yes we did412 W: Who413 H: In fact it was even he was our psychiatrist he, wanted to talk to us about

marriage counseling=414 W: =No, we went to Dr. H( ) for Michael

[415 H: That's not what I'm talking

about, I'm talking about I'm talking about the, psychiatrist on ( )Boulevard, who we went to, on two occasions and you just said, I don'tagree with what this guy is saying so we're not going back.

[ ]416 W: Oh okay I know who

you're talking about sure417 H: Okay418 W: Then, I went to a different one, and I wanted to go to=

419 H: ( )420 W: =a different one

[ 1421 H: Yeah because he didn't agree with you that' why you didn't

want to go there, that's the whole problem=422 W: =No, no I've got other feedback from other people

167


[ i423 H: How about Dr. (Frankel)424 W: How 'bout Dr. Frankel

[ ]425 H: We stopped going to Dr. Frankel because you didn't like what

he was saying to us426 W: John, we, you were the one who stopped going, you were the one who said

that we should stop, Michael from going to Dr. Frankel because you saw noprogress being made

427 H: That's right, I saw no progress being made but you didn't want to go to himbecause he started asking about your background and you thought that wasirrelevant

428 W: No I didn't

Like Example 1, discussion in Example 2 begins within the institutionallyauthorized framework for mediation. In turn 398 the wife rejects a visitationschedule proposed by the husband. In turn 399 the husband challenges thevalidity of that rejection, suggesting that the real basis for the rejection is notone that is sanctioned by mediation (i.e., what is in the best interests of thechildren). Then W, in turns 400/402/404, denies that she is acting in bad faithand gives grounds for rejection that have a recognizable bearing on H's parentalcompetence. In 405, H makes an argument that effectively neutralizes part ofW's rationale: neither one of them can claim mental stability. So, W cannot usethe issue to claim any privileged standing as a competent parent. All this so farappears relevant enough.

But also like Example 1, the disputants quickly shift focus to issues ofblameworthiness and moral fault by chaining off the dispute. As they continueto load their contributions with other pragmatic meanings, these come to slideinto a dominant position in the discourse, being taken up in an increasinglydirect way as though they were the main business of the exchange. When Wremarks (apparently to M) that H would not go for a psychiatric examination (asa test of whose claim is correct) because he has been unwilling in the past to goto counseling, W and H enter a twenty-three turn dispute over who is respon-sible for not going to counseling in the past.

One could, perhaps, plausibly reconstruct the point of the first few exchangesas denying or re-establishing W's claim in 406 that H - but now W - would faila psychiatric examination. But this purpose clearly withers away. By 415, if notearlier, the focus has manifestly shifted to a concern with blaming the otherparty for their relational problems rather than with establishing whether H is oris not mentally stable, much less with establishing whether or not W haslegitimate grounds for rejecting the custody proposal. Once again, the episodefinally ends with an intervention by the mediator.

Up to some point close to turn 406 one might think that the informationpresented could be reconstructed simply as arguments for and against thelegitimacy of W's rejection of the custody proposal. But notice, from the verybeginning challenge in 399 all the moves are morally charged. In 399, W isaccused of acting against the interests of her own children in order to punish H.

168


When W is asked to explain her denial of this charge, she begins listing reasonsthat find moral fault with H. In 402, she counters H's charge by challenging hisrole as a concerned or reliable parent, and she does so without using anymitigating language. In 404, W retorts in a manner that looks much like theaggravated turn shapes discussed by Goodwin (1983) - a minimal repeat of H'squery, filled twice. She then adds a second reason that further attacks H'scharacter: He is mentally unstable. In 405 H provides a direct counter accusation.

The information presented in these inital turns can certainly be organized in apragmatically relevant fashion. But the subsequent breakdown in discussionsuggests the presence of irrelevant uses from the very start. What happens is notso much a shift of purpose as an eventual abandonment of multiple, coordinatedpurposes.

Now, it is important to see that in argumentative discussion we very rarelyhave clear cues to what the participants are doing with particular information.But even when we have such cues, the cues are not foolproof indicators ofintention and use. Information may have relevance to more than one conclusion,and even if the information is cued as bearing on one particular conclusion, whatis said may evoke responses in terms of its bearing on other conclusions. Just asan arguer may argue indirectly by making complaints or asking questions, soalso an arguer can complain, criticize, or condemn indirectly by makingarguments. Even when information relevant to the participants' characters isintroduced into a dispute within an explicitly argumentative frame, presentingthat information can serve multiple functions for the participants. This isespecially clear in the present example, when W's case against a proposal isdeveloped by introducing information about the emotional and behavioralcharacteristics of H.

W's case, given in her contributions to the sequence in turns 398-404, is thatthe proposal is unacceptable "at this time" because H lacks the commitment andemotional stability required to make the proposal work. H refuses throughout theexchange to address the case, first accusing W of trying to punish him, then latertreating her assertion that he is mentally unstable as an insult to be returned. Wemight think of H as taking the apparent argumentative force of W's utterancesand reconstructing from them a personal attack. What is important about this isthat it emphasizes that the framing of information, while important to theorganization of an exchange, does not determine the organization of theexchange. Participants always have interpretive options, and it is this feature ofnatural discourse that permits the use being made of any information to be atleast partially negotiable.

Example 3

23 M: Genie, what what else would you want for Jonathon and Gregg. What wouldyou want to give them

24 W: Well I wanta give 'em the best of everything I'm able to, I'm working25 M: Mhm26 W: I don't want Jonathon taken away from me, and to go with his father

169


because I don't think that would be right, his father is on drugs, he's an al hehe drinks, he lies, all this is very untrue what he's been saying. He can havevisitation rights, what what I know he will do is I know the minute he getsahold of Jonathon I won't see Jonathon again. He eh he's not working, hehas nothing to hold him here he has told me time and time again that if heand I ever separated, he would take Jonathon and I would never see himagain. Now he's turned around and said

[ .27 H: That's not true28 W: That is true

[29 H: No it's not true30 W: What you have said about about Gregg

[ ]31 H: I'm not working because I had an accident okay

[ ]32 W: Because

you were driving under the influence and went off a cliff Fred[ ]

33 H: I had not beencited for any such violation I did have an auto accident, and at the bottom ofthe cliff where I laid for two and a half hours, I did have beer and the ladythat found me, also had a beer sitting on the side of the cliff before they gotme up in a basket on the side of the cliff I went off a cliff four hundred andfifty feet, and I'm not on drugs

[ i34 W: two hundred feet, twohundredfeet=35 H: =Four hundred and fifty36 W: Two hundred feet I have the police report

Often times the interpretive problem presented by a digression takes the formof two competing Gestalts. On the one hand, an interpretation relevant to theissues at hand can be constructed from the text, but only through exceedinglycharitable attribution of inferentially relevant information and/or decision-making schemes that relate the information presented to the point of the dispute.On the other hand, an alternative interpretation can also be constructed, but onethat creates a reconstruction that is in some way irrelevant to resolving the issueat hand. While the appeal of the former reconstruction is that it preserves theappearance of argumentative relevance, the appeal of the latter reconstruction isthat it is drawn more straightforwardly from the face value of what is said, howit is said, and the way it is taken up in subsequent discussion.

On the face of it, Example 3 sounds like a chaotic squabble filled withpointless bickering that goes nowhere. It is not at all clear what difference itmakes to anything whether H was drinking when he went off the cliff or whetherthe cliff was two hundred feet high or four hundred and fifty feet high. Likeprevious disputants, H seems preoccuppied with defending his character at theexpense of addressing the custody question directly. And despite the potentialrelevance of W's arguments for custody in turn 26, she seems intent on framingher rationale in ways that maximize its accusatory force and on nitpickingeverything H says.

170


Nevertheless, one can reconstruct a case that is more or less relevant to thequestion of custody. Consider the case that might be reconstructed for W. Hercase is that it would not be right for Jonathon to live with his father because Hhas a variety of problems that make him unsuitable as a parent: He is on drugs,he drinks, he lies. Unlike W, he has no job and so is unlikely to be able toprovide for Jonathon. And the fact that he has no job makes it likely that he willmake good on earlier threats to take the boy and leave the state. Overall, sheportrays H as a no-good, low-down, shiftless bum.

Perhaps not surprisingly, H responds in a way that defends his moral charac-ter. While the fact that he is not working because he had an accident does notalter whether or not he is able to provide for Jonathon or is free to leave the statewith him, it does suggest that his unemployment should not be taken as anegative reflection on his moral character.

This presents W with an opportunity to add another count against him(driving while intoxicated). And when H denies this, his story presents W withan opportunity to add yet another count (lying about how far he fell). Notice thatW's nitpicking of H's story can be interpreted (very charitably, to be sure) asbacking for her claims about his drinking and lying. But it can also be seen(somewhat effortlessly) as simply an effort to dump on H regardless of itsbearing on the question of custody of Jonathon.

Likewise, H's story in 33 can be interpreted as assembling evidence that hewas not driving under the influence (he had beer after - not before - theaccident; and he has a witness) and that the accident was severe enough todisable him (it was a 450 foot drop; they had to get him up in a basket). But itcan also be seen as a rather convenient opportunity to gain sympathy.

In all of the digressions we have examined so far, at least some of the materialcontained in the digression has information-relevance, on some reconstruction ofthe two opposed cases. The irrelevance of the discussion appears to result notfrom the intrinsic irrelevance of the information, but from the framing of theinformation in ways that suggest irrelevant uses of the information: Pragmaticrelevance is either not clearly indicated and acknowledged, or pragmaticirrelevance is clearly indicated and acknowledged in addition. We will considerone final example, slightly different from the others. In Example 4, a digressionoccurs (see Jacobs, Jackson, Steams and Hall, 1991), but our focus here is on thefirst four turns, in which the wife elaborates on what appears to be an uncon-tested issue.

Example 4

129 W: Alrightthere's something else that I don't know what to do about. David calls meup a week ago he's supposed to have Susan this coming weekend. I madeplans about a month ago to go away this next weekend because I wouldn'thave Susan. Plans with two other couples he calls me up a week ago, wellhe has something he has to do so he's not taking her. What am I supposed todo? Who is I I mean I do I was in the middle of moving I couldn't even

171


concentrate on it at the time you know trying to figure out what to do I dohave these plans. I guess I can take her with me but I thought the wholepoint is that when he has custody he has custody and I'm not allowed to beinvolved in what arrangements he makes for her and vice versa.

[ ]130 M: Okay and

Ordinarily what most parents do in a situation like that is that if somethingcomes up for you you're not able to have Susan with you that you make theplans for her care during that time she was to have been with him, beforeyou do so however you could call as a courtesy to Lisa and to the motherand say hey I won't be there would you like to have her with you thatweekend and it who knows maybe it's something that you would havewanted to include her in. So then you would have said sure I'll be happy totake care of her. We'll switch weekends.

131 W: It's not normally a problem like that except in this particular case we madeplans to go away

[ ]132 M: Okay Okay so ordinarily after having been giving Lisa a

chance to do that, uhm, most people feel that it's the responsibility of theparent that is to have had the child that weekend to take care of the child. Isthat how you'd like to do that from now on?

133 W: That's fine with me and I am normally not like even the one day a week Icould see (dumping that one day and doing something different). Myschedule is fairly flexible you know with some notice. This particular thingI I just felt really put out because he was coming on you know I can't takeher this weekend so I want another weekend and I you know my plans werenot important what about me? You know of course if it came down to thathe's gonna go on not taking her I guess I got her, she's my daughter I meanwhat am I gonna do I just feel that you know there's some responsibilityinvolved in this thing=

134 H: =I didn't give you an ultimatum like you're making it sound. I asked if wecould switch=

In turn 129 W raises a problem that appears to call for the advice of themediator. The problem she elaborates is clearly linked to a central issue inmediation, the practicality of the custody/visitation arrangement. Her elaborationseems designed to argue for the existence of that problem. And the framing ofthe problem projects a resolution-centered continuation. In turns 130 and 132 Moffers just such a continuation, describing the way people "ordinarily" handlesuch problems.

But W continues to develop her "case" - even after saying that the M'sproposed solution is "fine with me." Her follow-up looks more and moresuperfluous as she continues to expound on the irksomeness of the problem andthe role of H in creating the problem. Her continuation is pragmaticallyirrelevant, it is argumentatively pointless by virtue of the fact that she is stilldescribing the problem after accepting M's suggestion as a solution. Notsurprisingly, H picks up another possible point of the elaboration - to complainabout H, and this exchange progresses into a full-blown digression in the style ofthe other three.5

172


WHAT ARGUMENTATIVE DIGRESSIONS SHOW

In this paper we have tried to show that analyses of relevance in argumentationmust take into account the pragmatics of argumentation. Examination ofdigressions show that irrelevance is not simply a matter of information unrelatedto conclusions, but is also a matter of acts ill-adapted to the function of resolvingdisagreements. Misadaptation may be communicated through the absence ofclear functional design in the phrasing and placement of utterances or throughthe presence of indications of a competitive functional design. It is not at allclear in these digressions that the participants actually intend to be advancingrelevant arguments, or only advancing relevant arguments. This is what leadsboth to the appearance of competitive interpretive Gestalts and to a sense ofshifting from or simply abandoning an argumentative purpose in favor ofconcerns for attacking and saving face.

Of course, we are not saying that what the disputants are doing is totallyunrelated to the issues that initiate the exchange; on the contrary, we havepointed out that it is often reasonably easy tofind how the information presentedin these episodes could be used in argumentatively relevant ways. But the in-principle relevance of the information at hand may not be enough. Even whereplausible connections to relevant issues could be drawn, an argumentative usemay not be warranted or the manifest functions of utterances may work to framethe information in such a way as to conceal rather than highlight argumenta-tively relevant connections. Argumentative irrelevance is more than justenthymematic obscurity.

Pragmatic irrelevance occurs in these digressions in at least two ways.6 Onekind of pragmatic irrelevance is use of otherwise relevant information inargumentatively unproductive ways (such as complaining, criticizing, condemn-ing, or seeking to establish points that are themselves unrelated to the issues athand). When propositional content is not presented as justification for a position,the force of an argument for that position is missing, even though all of theinformation needed to develop relevant support may be available. The other kindof pragmatic irrelevance is superfluous defense. When argumentation is offeredin support of an uncontested standpoint, the argumentation cannot be said to berelevant to settlement of a disagreement. Making an argument in such a case ispointless.7

It is interesting to note that pragmatic irrelevance in these digressions isgenerally a collaborative failure, a problem produced jointly by the expressivechoices of one party and the responsive choices of another. The danger of anirrelevant move is not just that it may short circuit reasoning, but that it may leadrespondents to take up what is said in argumentatively unproductive directions.

Certainly there are communicative responsibilities incumbent on anydisputant. But it is only when the disputant's partner takes up a contribution in apragmatically irrelevant way that digressions can really be said to be occurring.Given potentially relevant information nested in a distracting frame, it is therespondent who must choose whether or not to reconstruct a relevant argument

173

SCOTTI' JACOBS AND SALLY JACKSON

from the materials at hand. And this recurs at every next turn-change. Eachparticipant at each point in the discussion must choose whether to take up thepreceding discourse in ways that are relevant to the argumentative purposes ofthe exchange or in ways that are relevant to some competing purpose.

Oftentimes tidy arguments can be reconstructed from natural languageoccurrences in such a way as to make a better case than was built by the arguer.This is a useful analytic strategy, for it helps us to see the potential in any bodyof material. But it is also useful and important to see that in their naturalcontexts of occurrence, functional vagueness, ambiguity, and indirection arenormal features of argumentative discourse (Jacobs, 1989a, 1989b, 1990). Oneresponse to these properties of discourse is to see them as creating an analyticpredicament, to be solved through methods for rendering what is said into somepurer argumentative form. Another response (illustrated in our analysis) is to seethese properties as presenting an analytic puzzle - not a barrier to analysis, but athing to be analyzed. The first response treats communication as a curtain to bebrushed aside in order to reveal the underlying argumentative structure. Thesecond treats communication as a tapestry into which the argument itself hasbeen woven.

NOTES

I Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by grants from the University ofOklahoma Office of the Provost and by research fellowships from the NetherlandsInstitute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences.2 Mediations analyzed in this paper were selected from transcribed audiotapes of twentypre- and post-divorce custody/visitation mediation sessions conducted by the LosAngeles County Family Mediation and Conciliation Court. The mediation service isdescribed in Pearson and Thoennes (1984). The transcripts were made available to us byWilliam A. Donohue, Department of Communication, Michigan State University. Theaudiotapes were part of approximately 80 collected by the Divorce Mediation ResearchProject (1981-1984), funded by the Children's Bureau of the United States Departmentof Health and Human Services (90-CW-634) and administered by Jessica Pearson,Director of the Research Unit of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts,Denver, CO.3 Their daughter Vanessa has left H and is staying with W after a suicide attempt. Hwants her back and also wants to make her enter therapy. W has resisted both sugges-tions. The daughter had originally been living with W, but then moved to live with H.4 Transcription is based on an adaptation of Gail Jefferson's notation (see Atkinson andHeritage, 1984): Single parentheses ( ) indicate material that was not clearly audible tothe transcriber or not audible at all. Brackets [ ] indicate beginning and endpoints ofinterruption and overlap. Equal signs = mark a continuous stream of talk between twospeakers or by the same speaker. Double parentheses (( )) contain editorial directions.Italics indicates special stress. Words spelled in all capital letters indicate increasedloudness. Colons and repeated letters indicate stretched sounds. Dashes at the end ofpartial or completed words indicate cut-off sounds. Punctuation marks usually indicatevocal intonation rather than grammatical form.5 Indeed, the real point of this elaboration seems to be to censure H. Notice that Wreplies in both 131 and 133 by claiming that this is not "normally" a problem and by

174


emphasizing "this particular case" and "this particular thing".6 There is a third kind of pragmatic irrelevance, though we do not discuss it here. That isthe sort of irrelevance that occurs in the fallacy of begging the question through circularreasoning. While logically speaking P follows from P, so that it might be held that P isrelevant to P, asserting P in order to justify concluding the truth of P would be pragmati-cally pointless. If P is a standpoint that is in doubt, (re)asserting P provides no reason towithdraw doubt or rejection of P; nor does (re)asserting P address objections, if any, forrejecting or doubting the truth of P. In other words, asserting P does nothing to resolve adisagreement over P since it in no way strengthens the original grounds for agreementnor weakens the original grounds for disagreement. And if P was not in doubt, there is nopoint making an argument for P.7 Of course, there might be other purposes for making an argument in such a case, butthey would not be argumentatively relevant. It should be noticed that these two sorts ofirrelevance can be derived quite neatly from van Eemeren and Grootendorst's (1984)felicity conditions for pro- and contra-argumentation. According to their analysis, theassertive put forward, must be put forward as justification for a standpoint, and thestandpoint must be contested or otherwise doubted by the listener. Irrelevance occurswhen these conditions are not satisfied.

REFERENCES

Atkinson, J.M. and J. Heritage (eds.): 1984, Structures of Social Action: Studies inConversation Analysis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Blair, J.A.: 1989, 'Premise Relevance', in R. Maier (ed.), Norms in Argumentation:Proceedings of the Conference on Norms 1988, Foris, Dordrecht, pp. 67-83.

Eemeren, F.H. van and R. Grootendorst: 1984, Speech Acts in Argumentative Discus-sions: A Theoretical Model for the Analysis of Discussions Directed towards SolvingConflicts of Opinion, Foris, Dordrecht.

Goodwin, M.H.: 1983, 'Aggravated Correction and Disagreement in Children'sConversations', Journal of Pragmatics 7, 657-677.

Jackson, S., S. Jacobs, and A. Rossi: 1987, 'Conversational Relevance: Three Experi-ments in the Pragmatic Connectedness of Conversation', in M.L. McLaughlin (ed.),Communication Yearbook 10, Sage, Beverly Hills, pp. 323-347.

Jacobs, S.: 1989a, 'Arguments and Speech Acts', Argumentation 3, 345-365.Jacobs, S.: 1989b, 'Some Problems of Communication for Argumentation Theory', ISSA

Newsletter 5, 2-10.Jacobs, S.: 1990, 'Realizing Ideal Argumentation Through Third Party Dispute Media-

tion', paper contributed to the annual convention of the Speech CommunicationAssociation, Chicago, IL, November, 1990.

Jacobs, S. and S. Jackson: 1983, 'Speech Act Structure in Conversation: Rational Aspectsof Pragmatic Coherence', in R.T. Craig and K. Tracy (eds.), ConversationalCoherence: Form, Structure, and Strategy, Sage, Beverly Hills, pp. 47-66.

Jacobs, S. and S. Jackson: 1989, 'Building a Model of Conversational Argument', in B.Dervin, L. Grossberg, B.J. O'Keefe, and E. Wartella (eds.), Paradigm Dialogues inCommunication, Vol. 2: Exemplars, Sage, Beverly Hills, pp. 153-171.

Jacobs, S., S. Jackson, S. Steams, and B. Hall: 1991, 'Digressions in ArgumentativeDiscourse: Multiple Goals, Standing Concerns, and Implicatures', in K. Tracy (ed.),Understanding Face-to-Face Interaction: Issues Linking Goals and Discourse,Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, pp. 43-61.

Pearson, J. and N. Thoennes: 1984, 'The Preliminary Portrait of Client Reactions toThree Court Mediation Programs', in J.A. Lemmon (ed.), Reaching EffectiveAgreements, Mediation Quarterly, No. 3, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, pp. 21-40.

175

176 SCOTT JACOBS AND SALLY JACKSON

Searle, J.R.: 1969, 'Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

Walton, D.N.: 1982, Topical Relevance in Argumentation, John Benjamins, Amsterdam.

Relevance and digressions in argumentative discussion: A pragmatic approach

Documents

Transcript of Relevance and digressions in argumentative discussion: A pragmatic approach