Speech acts and arguments

Speech Acts and Arguments

SCOTT JACOBS

Department of CommunicationUniversity of OklahomaNorman, OK 73019U.S.A.

ABSTRACT: Speech act theory seems to provide a promising avenue for the analysis ofthe functional organization of argument. The theory, however, might be taken to suggestthat arguments are a homogenous class of speech act with a specifiable illocutionary forceand a single set of felicity conditions. This suggestion confuses the analysis of the meaningof speech act verbs with the analysis of the pragmatic structure of actual language use.Suggesting that arguments are conveyed through a homogeneous class of linguistic actionoverlooks the way in which the context of activity and the form of expression organize theargumentative functions performed in using language. An alternative speech act analysiswould treat folk terminology as a heuristic entry point into the development of a technicalanalysis of the myriad argumentative functions and structures to be found in naturallanguage use. This would lead to a thorough-going pragmatic analysis of the rational andfunctional design of speech acts in argumentation.

KEY WORDS: argument, context, indirection, rational model, speech acts.

One of the fundamental intuitions that people share about the nature oflanguage is that in order to understand what an utterance means you haveto recognize what that utterance is being used for. You have to know whatsomeone is trying to do with it. So, for example, imagine that you areworking in your office at 6:30 p.m., an hour past the time that you saidyou would be home for dinner, and you get a phone call from your spousewho asks, "When are you coming home?" Understanding the meaning ofthat utterance does not stop with recognition that your spouse presup-poses that you are coming home at some time but is expressing uncertaintyabout what time that will be. You could also ordinarily recognize that yourspouse intends to use the utterance to get information, to request that youcome home, to obtain a commitment to arrive at the time you state in youranswer, to remind you that you were supposed to be home already, tocriticize you for not coming home on time, and to elicit an account and anapology. This is all part of what we would want to call the meaning of theutterance.

Argumentation 3: 345-365, 1989.© 1989 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

SCOTT JACOBS

THE DOCTRINE OF SPEECH ACTS

One attempt to account for this sort of intuition can be found in thetheory of speech acts. According to the standard theory, sentences neverstand alone as simple propositional content; they are always used toperform some function. When saying something we are always doingsomething, i.e., performing some speech act with a specifiable 'force'(Austin, 1975). So, according to speech act theory, the meaning of anutterance like "When are you coming home?" is to be analyzed, in part, bycharacterizing the speech act(s) that a speaker intends to perform in usingthe utterance (Labov and Fanshel, 1977; Searle, 1975).

One of the main appeals of this line of theorizing is that it promises toprovide a systematic account of the different kinds of functions thatlanguage might be used to perform (i.e., utterance 'forces') and the condi-tions under which an utterance can be used to perform those functions.Speech act theory suggests that the intended function or illocutionaryforce of an utterance can be characterized in terms of speech act verbs,e.g., promising, requesting, asserting, apologizing, resigning, certifying, andso on. Searle's work (1969, 1976) provides a paradigm for this kind ofclassification, analyzing different kinds of speech acts in terms of the'felicity conditions' that jointly constitute the meaning of such acts and thatare required for their appropriate performance. Every speech act will haveassociated with it some set of possible propositional contents; an essentialcondition that defines the 'illocutionary point' of the act - the intent thespeaker communicates in performing the act; a set of sincerity conditionsthat describe the attitudes, beliefs, and wants that speakers commit them-selves to by virtue of performing the act; and a set of preparatoryconditions that are rational prerequisites to pursuing the intentionexpressed by that act.

So, for example, a request must predicate a future action of theaddressee (propositional content condition). A request counts as anattempt to get the hearer to perform the action (essential condition). Thesincerity condition specifies that the speaker wants the hearer to do therequested action. And the preparatory conditions specify that the speakerbelieves that the hearer is able to do the requested act, that the speakerhas reason to want the act performed, and that it is not obvious that thehearer would ordinarily do the act without being requested to do so.These conditions define what it means to correctly perform a request.

ARGUMENT AS A SPEECH ACT

Now, the question of interest for argumentation scholars is whether or notthe framework provided by speech act theory can provide a useful basisfor analyzing the properties of one of argumentation theory's basic

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concepts: the concept of an argument. Traditionally, argumentationscholars have treated argument as a kind of proposition or as a set ofpropositions (i.e., reasons) that support or contradict a conclusion. Such atreatment has tended to lead argumentation scholars into equating theanalysis of argument with the analysis of logical structures and/or ofreasoning processes. Of course, this is just the sort of propositionalanalysis of language that Austin had hoped speech act theory wouldsupplant.

Now, speech act theory suggests that argumentative propositions canonly be expressed through the performance of some speech act. But thereare different ways in which we can take this claim. One way to take thisclaim would be to assume that arguments, like propositional objects ingeneral, can be expressed in a variety of speech acts and to insist thatthere are important properties of argumentation to be discerned from theways in which arguments get expressed in these various sorts of speechacts. This would lead to a pragmatic study of the uses of argument and theways in which the nature of arguments are conditioned by the broaderlanguage games and forms of expression in which they participate.

But there is another way to take a speech act approach to argument.Given the suggestion that whenever there is an argument there is a speechact that conveys that argument, an analyst might be led to search for theproperties of the language function - the speech act - that is performedwhenever an argument is put forward. That is, one could assume thatwherever there is an argument, it is put forward through a particular typeof speech act, the act captured by phrases like "arguing that" or "makingan argument". Such an assumption would seem natural enough, giventhe terms and phrases provided by our ordinary language vocabulary(O'Keefe, 1977; 1982). In this sense, arguing is a language function on apar with acts like claiming, correcting, refuting, advocating, clarifying,accounting for, justifying, defending, asserting, or explaining. One couldthen attempt to specify the essential characteristics of that act so as tospecify the functional context (i.e., the associated purposes and precondi-tions) that organizes the production of arguments wherever arguments getconveyed.

This latter line of reasoning seems to be the generally accepted one.Searle (1969, p. 66) suggests that 'argue' is a kind of assertive that isessentially tied to an attempt to convince the addressee (see also Gnamus,1987). Likewise, O'Keefe (1982, pp. 11-12), who holds that argument isnot a speech act but is the linguistic product that is conveyed by a speechact, assumes that there is a single type of speech act that conveys anargument - the speech act of "making an argument" (cf. Burleson, 1979,1981; Wenzel, 1980). O'Keefe states that "a paradigm case of making anargument involves the communication of both (1) a linguistically expli-cable claim and (2) one or more overtly expressed reasons which arelinguistically explicable" (1982, p. 14).

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My own work with Sally Jackson on the conversational organization ofargument makes several references to features of the act of making anargument (Jackson and Jacobs, 1980; Jacobs, 1987; Jacobs and Jackson,1981; 1982, in press). We have suggested that arguments are subordinatespeech acts issued in support of or in objection to some main, super-ordinate act. We take a relation of actual, virtual, potential, or projecteddisagreement among the acts of interlocutors to be a constitutive featureof any argument and see the management of disagreement as the basicfunction of argument. We have also suggested that reason-giving in thesense of "offering grounds for supporting or objecting to an utterance ...is a necessary condition for making an argument" (Jackson and Jacobs,1980, p. 254). However, "It is the functional context of disagreementmanagement that distinguishes the arguments people make from structur-ally-related patterns of discourse which serve the functions of illustration,explanation, clarification, and the like" (Jacobs, 1987, p. 230).

While these observations are suggestive, they do not provide a system-atic characterization of the speech act of arguing on the model of analysisprovided by Searle (1969). The most explicit and complete treatment ofargument in these terms is to be found in work by van Eemeren andGrootendorst (1982; 1984). According to van Eemeren and Grootendorst(1984), argumentation is an "illocutionary act complex", by which theymean that it is a constellation of one or more component elementaryassertives that together form the illocution of argumentation. This constel-lation stands in "a justifying or refuting relation to an expressed opinion(which consists of statements acting as a claim or conclusion)" (p. 39).

Following Searle's framework, they offer the following felicity condi-tions that a listener is entitled to assume are fulfilled when a speaker isheard as performing an act of pro-argumentation (pp. 42-46):

(1) The speaker has put forward an expressed opinion O.

(2) The speaker has put forward a series of assertions S1, S2 ,.., , inwhich propositions are expressed. (Propositional content condi-tion)

(3) Advancing S, S2, .. .S, counts as an attempt by the speaker tojustify O to the listener's satisfaction, i.e., to convince the listener ofthe acceptability of O. (Essential condition)

(4) The speaker believes that: (a) the listener does not (or may not)accept O; (b) the listener does (or will) accept S1, S2, ... , S; (c)the listener will accept S, S2, ... ,S, as justification of O. (Pre-paratory conditions)

(5) The speaker believes that: (a) O is acceptable; (b) S, S2, ... , S,are acceptable; (c) SI, S2,..., S, justify 0. (Sincerity conditions)

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Parallel conditions obtain for an act of contra-argumentation:

(1) The listener has put forward an expressed opinion O.

(2) The speaker has put forward a series of assertions, SI, S2..., S,in which propositions are expressed. (Propositional content condi-tion)

(3) Advancing SI, S2, .. , Sn counts as an attempt by the speaker torefute O to the listener's satisfaction, i.e., to convince the listener ofthe unacceptability of O. (Essential condition)

(4) The speaker believes that: (a) the listener accepts O; (b) the listenerdoes (or will) accept SI, S2, . .. , S (c) the listener will accept S1,S2, .., Sn as a refutation of O. (Preparatory conditions)

(5) The speaker believes that: (a) O is unacceptable; (b) SI, S2, S,are acceptable; (c) S, S2, ... , S, refute O. (Sincerity conditions)

The first three conditions for pro- and contra-argumentation are termed'recognition conditions' by van Eemeren and Grootendorst since whenthey are not satisfied, the speech act of arguing will 'misfire'. That is, theutterance simply will not be heard as counting as argumentation. Thelatter two conditions are termed 'correctness conditions' since when theyare not satisfied, certain abuses will occur. In the case of failures ofpreparatory conditions, the speaker will have performed a pointless act. Incases of failures of sincerity conditions, the speaker will have performed amisleading act.

Now, this list of conditions resonates well, I think, with our ordinarylanguage intuitions about what it means to "make an argument" and howone can go wrong in trying to do so. It thus offers both a descriptiveframework for analyzing argumentation in naturally occurring communica-tion and a normative framework for establishing standards of proceduralvalidity in argumentation against which any case of argumentation mightbe evaluated.

Certain friendly amendments might be offered. For example, Benjamin(1987) suggests that acts other than assertives might go into the composi-tion of an argument - definitions, predictions, evaluations. And thefelicity conditions for these acts (and for assertives as well) might beproperly thought of as part of the commitments a speaker takes on whenmaking an argument by means of such acts. One could hardly be said tohave made an argument correctly if the propositions of a componentassertive were false or if subsequent terms were not used according to thedefinition put forward.

Or again, following Ferrara's (1980) lead, we might add to the list of

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preparatory conditions an "obviousness" condition akin to that found inmany other speech acts. For argument, the condition would require thespeaker's belief that it is not obvious to the listener that S1, S2,..., S arerelevant to the justification of O. The idea here is that while the appro-priateness of assertions depends upon the non-obviousness to the listenerof the truth of the proposition, the relative appropriateness of an assertionas argument does not depend on the non-obviousness to the listener of thetruth of the proposition. Indeed, argument is pointless if the listener doesnot accept the truth of the propositions used as reasons. Rather, therelative appropriateness of assertions as argument will depend on thelistener accepting their truth, but not seeing beforehand that the assertionsare relevant to justifying the standpoint in question.

Or again, we might wish to call condition 4a a recognition condition,since it is this condition that establishes the relation of disagreement. Butamendments such as these do not fundamentally change the analysis. Themajor impact remains the same. This characterization appears to provide abasic analysis of what someone is doing when they make an argument.

But there is a problem in all of this. This sort of analysis of argument,like speech act analysis in general, locates the structure and function ofargumentative intentions in the unit of the isolated act (Schegloff, 1988).It therefore suggests a constancy of structure and function across a broadrange of contexts and patterns of expression (which is, of course, part ofits appeal). While the conceptual analysis above appears to provide astraightforward and clearcut description of argument in just this way, closeexamination of the actual circumstances in which arguments occur and ofthe actual ways in which arguments get expressed reveals that argumentsdo not always submit to this type of analysis. Instead of an isolable andhomogeneous speech act, one finds a family of act types that vary infunction and pragmatic logic depending upon the context of their use andthe form of their expression.

PROBLEMS WITH SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS

One of the biases (or, perhaps, confusions) of speech act analysis is that itassumes that folk linguistic taxonomies of what people do with wordsprovide a nonproblematic mapping of the functions of actual languageusage. The problem with this assumption is that it equates the semanticproperties of speech act verbs with the empirical properties of actuallanguage usage. Rather than treating speech act verbs as folk theory withheuristic value as a starting point for empirical analysis, speech act theorytreats this vocabulary as constitutive of the functional organization oflanguage itself. As Ninio (1986) has elegantly shown, we should not

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simply trust the distinctions built into language to reflect the importantdimensions of language use.'

If the focus of the inquiry is the overtly communicative aspect of utterances rather thanthe semantics of certain verbs in the language, it is unjustified to use the terms in thelexicon as names for the phenomenon without checking whether they really fit (p.130).2

Our language simply does not always encode distinctions in languageuse that people recognize and orient to (Goodwin, 1982, note 6). Anumber of analysts have suggested that the analysis and subsequentapplication of speech act verbs suggests a homogeneity and invariance thatis not a property of actual utterance usage, but a semantic property of theverbs used to describe those utterances. In this way speech act descriptorscreate a false impression that the functions and performative structures ofthe classes of utterances so described are isolable from the concretecircumstances of their occurrence or the form of their expression (Frentzand Farrell, 1976; Jacobs and Jackson, 1983a; Levinson, 1979; 1981;Owen, 1983).

In their studies of natural conversation, conversation analysts haverepeatedly demonstrated the way in which the functions of utterances aresubtly fitted to the particular circumstances of their placement and finelyattuned to the nuances of their expression (Atkinson and Heritage, 1984;Schenkein, 1978). This process of adaptation to context and expressionwill necessarily be glossed over by speech act verbs (if there is a verb todescribe the utterance at all) because, as Randall (1982) has suggested,verbs already presuppose a standard context and a standard manner ofexpression. The semantics of verbs are prototypical and schematic innature so that

verbs typically refer to the usual sequences of activities, in pursuit of the usual goals,which use the material means and settings usually associated with the activity, andwhich are usually selected in such circumstances (p. 289).

As an example of how the context of activity and manner of expressioncan affect the force of a speech act, consider the act of complaining (seealso Levinson, 1979, for a more detailed exposition of variations in thespeech act of questioning). The illocutionary force and felicity conditionsfor the act of complaining would include the specification that the speakerexpress dissatisfaction with some state of affairs, but this does not capturewhat is fully (or even primarily) intended by many complaints. Moreover,what is required for the nondefective performance of a complaint can varyradically with such things as the formulation of the complainable, thespeaker's relationship to the complainable state of affairs, the addresseefor the complaint, and so on.

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For example, there may be a wide range of intentions expressedthrough a complaint, depending on the nature of the complainable state ofaffairs. Whether or not a complaint counts as an attempt to fix blame for acomplainable state of affairs depends on whether the agent responsible forthe complainable state of affairs is morally accountable. Complaints cancount as efforts to fix blame on a person or an institution, but not on theweather. Other complaints may function as efforts to get someone to stopdoing an offensive action - but only if an action is involved, if it isrepeatable, habitual, or ongoing, and only if the addressee is the agent inquestion.

Or consider the way in which the relation of the addressee to thecomplainable state of affairs is critical in constituting what kind of an act isbeing performed. There is a substantial difference between complaining tosomeone about something they did, and complaining about something forwhich the addressee bears no direct responsibility. Both types of utterancewill be taken as intending to express dissatisfaction and to obtain somesort of acknowledgement from the addressee, but in the former case wewould want to say that the addressee had missed the point of the com-plaint if they offered sympathy or shared indignation. We would want tosay that obtaining some sort of remedial offering from the offender(apology, account, compensation) is surely part of the intention here.

And in the latter case, whether or not the addressee is intended toprovide sympathy, share indignation, or suggest a remedy depends on acomplex of contextual particulars having to do with the nature of thecomplainable, the attitude expressed by the speaker (e.g., hurt, anger,frustration), and the kind of role the addressee occupies (e.g., friend,employer). Along these lines, consider also the more complex case ofcomplaining before an audience cast into the role of jury. Here theintention may be to obtain public censure of an offending party. Andwhere the complaint is made in an official institutional setting, the inten-tion of achieving even more formal outcomes will be part of the meaningof the act.

Corresponding to these different intentions are different conditions forthe nondefective performance of the complaint. In seeking remedy, youmust assume that the addressee can provide it. If seeking sympathy, youmust assume that your well-being is of concern to the addressee and thatyou deserve sympathy. And if calling for shared indignation, you mustassume that the complainable is the result of an intentional agency andthat the addressee shares your values. In complaining to someone, theaddressee must be responsible for the complainable, but in complainingabout some state of affairs there need be no attribution of responsibility toanyone. And when complaining before an audience, the complainee mustnot only be responsible for an offending act, but the complaint must bemade on public moral grounds and not formulated simply as somethingpersonally dissatisfying to the complainer (Garfinkel, 1956).

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Finally, complaints can fit any of a number of Searle's (1976) categoriesof illocutionary act depending on particulars of their content and mode ofexpression (Newell and Stutman, 1987). In some circumstances, com-plaints will be heard as having a "directive" force, by implying a demandon the hearer ("I paid for and reserved a room in this hotel four monthsago"). Complaints can also have a force "expressive" of a psychologicalstate ("I just hate having to stand in lines"). Or they may have the force ofa "representative" by expressing a negative belief about a state of affairs("Having us fill out all these forms is just a waste of time"). They may evenhave the force of a "commissive" committing the speaker to a course ofaction ("I am not going to put up with this anymore").

Now, all of these cases fall under the category "complaint." But itshould be apparent that both the force of a complaint and the pragmaticrequirements for its performance can vary substantially, depending uponwhat the complaint is being used to do. And what complaints can be usedto do is conditioned by such things as the logic of their circumstances andthe manner of their expression. As we shall see, this same sort of problemwill dog us when we try to make sense of the sort of phenomena for whichthe phrase "making an argument" provides an initial entry point.

PROBLEMS IN MAKING AN ARGUMENT

As a starting point for displaying the dimensions of the problem for theanalysis of argument, let us begin with two "nonstandard" ways of puttingforward arguments that have conventional folk language descriptors:hypothetical argument and devil's advocacy.

Now you might think, at first glance, that these sorts of argumentscounted as instances of contra-argumentation. But I think not. For onething, the standard sort of context in which we pose hypothetical argu-ments or play devil's advocate is less one of advocacy than it is one ofidea-testing. The function here is not so much to try to convince one'sinterlocutor of the unacceptability of O, as to test for the acceptability orunacceptability of O by seeing whether one's own arguments are accept-able or unacceptable to the listener. Whereas refutational and justificatoryargument are naturally imagined in the adversarial setting of a debate,hypothetical argument and devil's advocacy find a natural home in acooperative, joint problem-solving discussion.

In these sorts of arguments the speaker is not committed to believingthat O is unacceptable. Nor is the speaker committed to believing that S1,S2, ... , S are acceptable or that the listener believes this. Nor is thespeaker committed to believing that S, S2, ... S, refute O or that thelistener will believe this. After all, part of the point of hypotheticalargument and devil's advocacy is to avoid these sorts of commitments. The

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speaker is only committed to believing that someone might think thesethings, which is a pretty light commitment.

The suspension of commitments typical of contra-argumentation is justwhat is signalled by qualifiers and hedges like "what if someone were tosay . . ." or "might it not be the case that . . ." or by disclaimers like "now,I'm only playing devil's advocate here". These forms of expressions do notso much indicate some kind of indirect argumentation as much as theyindicate a different kind of argumentation altogether. While these sorts ofarguments may be parasitical on the standard speech act of making anargument, it should be clear that different pragmatic preconditions and adifferent illocutionary force is operative here. Of course, one may in facthold the beliefs and have motives characteristic of contra-argumentationas described above. But actual beliefs are not the same as public commit-ments, and actual motives are not the same as expressed intentions.

In fact, there are many ways to imply, allude to, or obliquely refer toarguments that one might think should be treated as indirect ways ofmaking an argument. Just as "Can you pass the salt?" will often be heardas the functional equivalent of "Please pass the salt" so also there will becircumstances in which utterances (e.g., rhetorical questions) that do notdirectly show themselves as argumentation can be treated as having theforce of such an assertion (van Eemeren, 1987). 3

But there are also many sorts of utterances which should not be treatedthis way. There are, for example, ways of hinting at an argument which are"off record" (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Off record acts differ fromconventional forms of indirection in that the speaker communicates hisintention in such a way that she is not accountable for having expressedthat intention. Hints are not indirect forms of their more direct relatives;they are functional alternatives (Jacobs and Jackson, 1983a).

In fact, one might think of the whole program of analyzing indirectspeech acts not as a linguistic inquiry into how natural language users inferillocutionary forces from nonstandard forms of expression, but instead asan effort to preserve the impression that the canonical illocutionary forceattached to a standard form of expression can be stretched to incorporatethe forces behind nonstandard forms of expression (cf. Bach and Harnish,1979; Ervin-Tripp, 1976; Gordon and Lakoff, 1975; Labov and Fanshel,1977; Morgan, 1978; Searle, 1975). Another way of thinking about theproblem of "indirect speech" would be to see that forms of expression areused for a purpose - often to perform a function that is an alternative tothe function that gets attributed by seeing the utterance as an indirectversion of that function.

Consider, for example, the way that a court-appointed mediator laysout two courses of action for divorcing spouses who seem to have come toan impasse in an argument over visitation arrangments for their children:4

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(1)

205 M: Now, there's no way to resolve this ((PAUSE)) ah, unless, something's putinto practice,

206 W: Mhm,207: M: then you see the results. Ah, the other, ah, approach is ah, for you to go to

the Center for Legal Psychiatry for the therapist there will talk with thechildren

208 W: Mhm we'll make that decision,209 M: and they'll be able to get more, ah deeper into the feeling the thinking,210 W: Mhm211 M: of the children. Because right here you see one thing, John sees another

thing,212 W: Mhm213 M: and ah, over there, and ah, maybe hopefully they will see the whole picture

and then make a recommendation to the court. ((PAUSE)) So I think thatbecause the two of you are at, have different points of view,

214 W: Mhm215 M: ah, maybe at this point we cannot work out a permanent plan216 W: Mhm217 M: Now, if you want to avoid going to the Center for Legal Psychiatry what we

could do is develop a permanent I mean a temporary plan

What the mediator has gently put out on the floor is something like this:Neither the husband nor the wife is going to be able to assemble anargument that convinces the other. Instead of continuing to argue theyshould try to resolve their impasse by agreeing on a temporary visitationschedule to see how it would work out. The reason they should do this isthat if they do not work something out, they will have to go through theCenter for Legal Psychiatry which will take the decision out of their handsand may force on them a visitation arrangement that would be far lessacceptable than the one they might settle on if they explore the possi-bilities of a temporary visitation arrangement. And, it might also beinsinuated, if either the wife or the husband are making insincere or bogusarguments to resist the other's position, the Center will surely see throughthis, so those arguments should be abandoned now.

What the mediator here insinuates and hints at, other mediators baldlyput on the table, often phrasing the argument in a highly threatening way.Also, the suggestion that the couple entertain a temporary visitationarrangement is a common fallback position that mediators move to whenthere is resistance to a permanent arrangement. 5 The mediator has chosennot to do this, but instead has chosen to insinuate these ideas in a way thatmaintains the neutral, noninterventionist role that mediators ideally prefer(Jacobs et al., 1987). In so doing, the mediator has avoided expressing thekinds of intentions or making the sorts of commitments that wouldaccompany the more common strategy of overtly making an argument foran expressed standpoint.

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Examples like (1) are not easily described without distortion by ourordinary speech act vocabulary. But that does not mean that they do nothave the properties we recognize them to have. The point to be drawnfrom examples like (1) is that a vast array of ways of communicating areproperly treated not as indirect versions of some canonical act of makingan argument, but are best seen as functional alternatives to such acts.

Consider yet another way of attempting to get an argument on thefloor: through the collaborative production of question-answer sequences.One of the properties of the arguments made in this way is that theassertions put forward for or against a standpoint are made by therespondent, not by the questioner, although if we attribute argumentativeintent at all, we would ordinarily attribute it to the questioner.

But there is considerable room for variability in the degree to whichsuch an attribution can be made. Depending upon the degree of closureand the certainty expressed in the phrasing of the questions as well asupon the way in which further questions follow up on respondent answers,the questioner may or may not be said to be engaged in an attempt toconvince the respondent of the (un)acceptability of some standpoint -which is the essential condition for making an argument. And dependingupon the phrasing and sequencing of the questions, the questioner may ormay not be committed to beliefs about the acceptability of the argumentor to the expectation that the listener will accept the propositions putforward. There is a great deal of difference between the process wherebyarguments emerge dialectically and the kind of aggressive questioningfound in (2), which comes from an initial psychotherapy session between ayoung female patient and a middle-aged therapist:

(2)

01 Pt: I don't want them [my parents] to have anything to do with my life, except(pause)//security (?)

02 Dr: You live at home?03 Pt: Yes.04 Dr: They pay your bills?05 Pt: Yeah.06 Dr: How could they not have anything to do with your life?

(Bleiberg and Churchill, 1975, p. 274)

Here, the therapist's questions are phrased as virtual assertions. Thereis nothing open-ended or uncertain about them. Their question-like char-acter comes only from their intonational contours. And the rhetoricalquestion in 06 seems to function to make manifest the relevance of02-03 and 04-05 as refutation of the patient's standpoint, and thus toexpose the argumentative force of the entire sequence (see conditions 4cand 5c). But not all sequences work this way.

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Consider another case. This excerpt is taken from a post-divorcemediation session in which the ex-husband is seeking return of his 16-year-old daughter who ran away to her mother following a suicideattempt. The mediator is discussing with the wife the need to have thedaughter enter therapy.

(3)

01 M: Were you ever included Tammy in these evaluative processes?02 W: Uum, hum yes03 M: How did you feel about it? What's it like the psychiatric process?04 W: ((inaudible))05 M: Why not?06 W: I can't really say because to me it didn't really say anything when we were

there at all. She tended to clam up and just wouldn't talk. He did most of thetalking.

07 M: How did you feel about the uh how did you feel about the psychiatrist andwhat they're doing. What they're trying to do =

08 W: We really weren't in there that long. I think the main thing that we weretalking about then was uh percentage wise on tennis shoes and not buyingexpensive things. She wanted uh I think she wanted a bike or something((PAUSE))

09 W: I don't know10 M: Are you saying that you were impressed or you were not impressed?11 W: I weren't no I was not.12 M: Do you think that Vanessa needs some intervention? some help? some ther-

apy?13 W: The thing that I see wrong with Vanessa since she's come home to ive with me

she defies authority she just wants her own way14 M: Is that good or bad?15 W: Bad. I've had my hands full, believe me ((PAUSE)) And I know he has too

when she was there. She uh she ran away. I've had my hands full.

(Jacobs et al., 1987, pp. 292-293)

The mediator in the above line of questioning seems to be trying todevelop the grounds for claiming that Vanessa should enter therapy. Butthis is not something that is apparent at the beginning. This is an intentionthat emerges in the progression of questions as they move from relativelyopen-ended opportunities for the wife to affirm the value of therapy (turns03 and 07) to pointed either-or questions concerning Vanessa's need forhelp (12, 14). Notice, however, that unlike the therapist's questions in (2)the mediator's acts do not function so much as assertions of value or needthat simply call for confirmation as much as they function as invitationsfor the wife to supply such assertions - invitations that the wife repeatedlydeclines to accept.

Examples (2) and (3) illustrate another departure from the paradigmaticcase of making an argument. In order to make an argument in this waythere must be conditions not stipulated for the standard form of making

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an argument: There must be conditions on the beliefs and intentions of therespondent. For example, the respondent must provide answers whosepropositions justify some conclusion. The answers must be sincere, andnot, for example, be sarcastic. That is, the respondent must believe thepropositions. And the respondent must accept the constellation of answersas establishing the (un)acceptability of the standpoint at issue. Moreover,the respondent must believe that the answers are acceptable to thequestioner and that the questioner takes them to establish the (un)accept-ability of the standpoint at issue.

It is precisely this sort of mutuality of conditions that allows thisprocedure to be used as a particularly powerful means of obtaining assentfrom the respondent (Bleiberg and Churchill, 1975; Jacobs, 1986). And,as case (3) illustrates, where the respondent's answers do not fulfill theseconditions there is a sense in which one wants to say that the argumenthas not come off. These sorts of arguments are better classified as avariant of what Hancher (1979) calls "co-operative illocutionary acts" -acts like betting or electing rather than as acts like asserting.

So far, we have considered cases of argument where the functionalintention in utterance use still looks something like that of an effort atobtaining conviction in the addressee - though this is not always theexpressed intention. Moreover, the analysis of the basis for attributingfunctional variation has focused primarily on the manner in which theargument gets put on the floor - through procedures designed to suspendcommitments or to diffuse responsibility between the interlocutors. Thefinal two examples consider the way in which the broader context ofactivity may structure the nature of the functional intentions at work inargument.

Consider first arguments which are made not so much to convince anaddressee of the (un)acceptability of a standpoint as to demonstrate one'sown viewpoint. This sort of argument has been variously described asserving an "ego-function" (Gregg, 1971), a "confrontation" functionthrough "agonistic ritual" (Cathcart, 1978; 1980) or a "demonstrative"function (Pander Maat, 1987). Jacobs (1982, 1983) has suggested that thistype of argumentation appears when the context as perceived by thespeaker is such that the pursuit of intersubjective truth or rational agree-ment is not taken to be a reasonable possibility, but where the speakernevertheless feels morally impelled to separate himself from the stand-point of his audience and/or feels unavoidably locked into a conflict ofstandpoints.

Under such circumstances it doesn't make sense to try to convince yourinterlocutor of the acceptability of your standpoint. A rational attempt toconvince an addressee of the (un)acceptability of some standpoint presup-poses that addressee and speaker share a common ground from which aset of assertions may be assembled in building a convincing case; that

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addressee and speaker share similar judgments concerning the relevanceand sufficiency of those assertions as justifications or refutations; and thatthe addressee has the motivation and moral capacity to enter into acooperative dialogue. The intention to convince further presupposes thatthe speaker believes that it would be worthwhile to attain a consensus withher audience. When these sorts of assumptions cannot be seriously enter-tained, one would want to say that an attempt to convince an addressee(by rational means) just doesn't make sense. But this does not mean thatunder such circumstances it doesn't make sense to make arguments forother purposes.

In my study of a fundamentalist evangelist and his secular audience ofcampus students (Jacobs, 1982; 1983), I argued that both sides findthemselves in an epistemic context of apparently radical incommensu-rability. The differences in standpoint are so great that any argumentsmade by either party only reinforce an impression of fundamentalirrationality and perversity formed by the other party. And yet, it is thisvery impression that impels both parties to demonstrate their moralalientation from the other through further argumentation as agonisticcombat. In a sense, the requirements of context not only preclude thepossibility of a reasonable intention to convince the listener, but alsocreate the possibility for, and even the demand for demonstrative confron-tation as a sensible alternative.

Now consider a second sort of context, one that often emerges inbargaining situations. In an ongoing study of third-party mediation pro-grams for dispute resolution my colleagues and I have found two differentconceptions of the nature of disputes. One conception might be called a"common ground" model, and fits well with the presuppositions of argu-mentation as rational deliberation among competing claims. On thismodel, disputes are seen as arising from differences of opinion and are tobe resolved by searching for ways to assemble shared beliefs and sharedvalues on behalf of some standpoint. The end result will be a consensus ofopinion among the disputants. Notice that on this model, competingstandpoints are taken as alterable starting points. What drives the processof dispute resolution is the disputants' belief that they share a commonground from which it is possible to reason to a shared conclusion.

The other model, which can be dubbed the "zone of agreement" model,presupposes a quite different conception of the nature of the dispute.Here, disputes are seen as arising from conflicts of interest and are to beresolved by searching for ways to bring these competing interests intoalignment. This is to be done by finding a zone of agreement - thoseproposals that maximally accomodate the interests of both parties. Theend result of this process is not a consensus of opinion, but a workingarrangement. Notice that on this model, conflicting interests are taken tobe unalterable starting points. What drives the process of dispute resolu-

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tion is the disputants' desire to maximize their own outcomes, given whatthe other participant is willing to allow.

Now, the point of interest is that when mediators work on a zone ofagreement model, argumentation is transformed into a bargaining process.Arguments are treated by mediators as expressive of wants and desiresrather than as representative of public values or objective states of affairs.They become a way of establishing what the speaker will accept as theboundaries for the zone of agreement. Argument within this activityfunctions less as an effort to convince an addressee of a particularstandpoint - to secure belief in some claim - than it does as an effort toget an addressee to accept the speaker's claim as a restriction on amutually acceptable settlement. In comparison to the paradigmatic act ofmaking an argument, the speaker does not have to get the addressee tobelieve S or ; it is enough that the addressee believe that the speakerbelieves S or O. The basis for consensus, then, comes not in decidingbetween O and not-O, but in deciding what kind of arrangement, if any,can support both O and not- 0.

CONCLUSION

As we have seen, the notion of argument as a stable, homogeneous classof utterances definable by a common force and a common set of felicityconditions does not fare well when tested against actual language uses.There are myriad uses and conditions of use. The problem is that theconcept of making an argument, which speech act theory takes to describeactual language use, already presupposes a standard context of activityand a standard form of expression. As such, it glosses over the way inwhich variations in manner of expression and context of activity activelyfashion the intended force that a speaker expresses and the matrix ofcommitments a speaker assumes in using an utterance.

So, what is to be done? One solution would be to take an explicitlynormative approach to the analysis of argumentation as a speech act. Thissort of approach is illustrated in the analyses of van Eemeren andGrootendorst (1984) who self-consciously define argumentation in termsof a standard form of expression, the statement, and a particular contextof activity, that of a critical discussion:

Argumentation is a speech act consisting of a constellation of statements designed tojustify or refute an expressed opinion and calculated in a regimented discussion toconvince a rational judge of a particular standpoint in respect of the acceptability orunacceptability of that expressed opinion. (p. 18)

It is on the basis of this 'dialectification' of argument that they propose

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to reconstruct ordinary discourse according to a principle of "maximalargumentative interpretation" (van Eemeren, 1987, p. 211). It could beargued that making arguments of the sort they describe is preferable onnormative grounds, e.g., on principles of maximal public commitment andresponsibility and universalization of reason. Arguments, for example, thatemerge through question and answer minimize the public commitment toand responsibility for such arguments. Likewise, demonstrative argumentis a radical denial of the universalization of reason. On the other hand,question and answer based arguments maximize the social grounding ofargument while demonstrative arguments maximize a moral demand forauthentic expression of self. In any case, one would still be faced with theneed to demonstrate how actual arguments stand as variations from anormative standard.

An alternative, and perhaps complementary solution, would be toadopt a "rational model" in the empirical analysis of discourse. Accordingto the standard theory of speech acts, both the nature of the illocutionaryintention and the conditions required for expressing that intention are theproduct of arbitrary institutional conventions. Speech acts have the forcethat they do and are constituted by the conditions that they have becausethat is how the game is played. There is no deeper rationale or functionaldesign. It is this conventionalist understanding which makes myriadlanguage uses so formidable to analysis.

A rational model, however, assumes that language use is the product ofa limited set of general principles of practical reasoning applied to theproblem of pursuing goals in a context of practical constraint andopportunity (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Jacobs, 1985; Jacobs andJackson, 1983b; in press; Levinson, 1979). Grootendorst (1987, pp.168-69), for example, has suggested that the various classes of felicityconditions identified by Searle (1969) can be derived from Grice's (1975)conversational maxims for cooperative communication. This accords withthe commonsense intuition that the specification of felicity conditions forpro- and contra-argumentation are not simply arbitrary stipulations ofwhat it means to perform such acts, but are assumptions about what itwould reasonably take to successfully pursue the goal of convincingsomeone under ordinary circumstances using the ordinary, direct means ofovertly stating one's case. In this case, the variation in the characteristics ofthe act of arguing will be as open as the variations in its context of activityand forms of expression.

We would have, then, a speech act theory of argument in which thereare recurring features that justify a common treatment - e.g., the convey-ance of reasons in a context of disagreement (potential, actual, virtual,hypothetical, etc.). But we would also find variation in the functions andpreconditions that structure argument according to the language activitiesand forms of expression in which arguments are embedded.

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NOTES

' While certain speech act theorists such as Searle (1976) would deny that the folksemantics of speech act verbs serves as the foundation for their analysis, these disclaimersare contradicted by actual practice. As Verschueren (1980, p. 34) argues, speech actclassifications are based wholly on conceptual analyses of speech act terminology. Indeed, Iknow of no case in which a speech act theorist has analyzed a speech act which is notalready named in the language of the theorist - though conversation analysts haveidentified numerous cases (Levinson, 1981; Schegloff, 1988). Nor is the disciplined ob-servation of actually occurring utterances typically used to evaluate the properties of agiven type of speech act. Speech act theorists seem to take it for granted that the distinc-tions found in speech act vocabularies both exhaust and accurately reflect the distinctionsthat people recognize in the actual lived activity of speaking.2 It should be clear that much of the concern with natural language users' concepts ofarguments and with the class of events they use the term to describe follows this line ofreasoning. Argumentation scholars have often thought that by articulating the semantics ofphrases like "making an argument" or "having an argument" or by asking naive subjects toapply such labels to examples of discourse that this was the equivalent of discovering theempirical properties of how people argue (Jacobs and Jackson, 1981; Jackson et al., 1986;Martin and Scheerhorn, 1986; Trapp, 1986, 1987).3 It could be argued that even rhetorical questions which serve as arguments are differentfrom openly asserted arguments. They have the added force of suggesting that theaddressee should already be aware of the argument being made (Bleiberg and Churchill,1975; Jacobs, 1986). The rhetorical question in line 06 of example 2 clearly has a sociallyaggressive force that an argument openly asserted would not have.4 In the mediation sessions discussed in this paper, couples filing any divorce or post-divorce motion before the courts must first meet with a trained, court-appointed mediatorto attempt to resolve child custody or visitation disputes. Mediation differs from arbitrationand legal adjudication in that, theoretically, the mediator takes no active role in workingout the substance of a settlement, but serves only to facilitate a dialogue by which thedisputants may search for their own solution. In the transcripts, M is the mediator, W is thewife, and H is the husband.5 These comparative cases form the basis for my interpretation of what the mediator isgetting at. The utterances themselves are designed in such a way that the mediator is notpublicly accountable for having conveyed such an argument.

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