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Article published In:
Argumentation in European Politics
Edited by Corina Andone and Bart Garssen
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 11:1] 2022
► pp. 69–87

Arguing through quotations

The case of European Commission press releases

| University of Amsterdam

This paper analyses and evaluates the use of arguments in which quotations are employed to convince the addressees of the acceptability of a proposed action. Based on the European Commission’s press releases, a communicative practice in which quotations are typically employed, the study demonstrates that quotations function as weak authority arguments that are not likely to be accepted by the addressees if they are not further supported by other argument types.

Keywords: press releases, quotations, authority arguments, European Commission
Article outline
  • 1.Background, research question, goal
  • 2.Approach
  • 3.Press releases accompanying recommendations
    • 3.1European Commission’s recommendations
    • 3.2Argumentative pattern of press releases accompanying recommendations
  • 4.Using quotations as authority arguments
    • 4.1Strategies of quoting
    • 4.2The quality of the quote
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Case law/Legal Opinions
  • EU official documents and reports
  • Semi-structured interviews with European Commission officials
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 8 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.21023.and
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