Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 18:1 (2019) ► pp.83–106

On conductive argumentation

President Trump’s United Nations address on Iran in focus

| University of Isfahan
| University of Isfahan
| University of Isfahan
Inspired by Aristotle and modern political theory, Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) introduce a model into Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) on the basis of deliberation and conductive argumentation (reasoning). This study makes an attempt to appraise the efficacy and adequacy of this model through examining Trump’s UN speech on Iran in 2017 in the light of other mainstream analytic tools and frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The findings suggest that the model is a step toward including the cognitive interface in PDA, and that the premises adduced in Trump’s speech could serve the purpose of delegitimizing Iranian government and ‘Iranoregimephobia’, hence calling for confronting Iran. It is concluded that if integrated with other approaches, the model could serve to possibly counter-balance the subjectivity and skepticism associated with CDA-oriented studies, thus possibly proving itself as a practical, effective, and informative tool for the critical study of political discourse.
Keywords: practical argumentation, conductive argumentation (reasoning), critical discourse analysis (CDA), Trump, political discourse analysis (PDA)
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Conductive argumentation and PDA
  • 3.President Trump’s conductive argument on Iran in the UN
  • 4.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 31 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.18025.mor
References (96)
References
Audi, Robert. 2006. Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baker, Mona. 2006. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1990. The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
. 1998. “My intellectual Path.” New York Review of Books 45(8), May 14: 53–60.Google Scholar
Bickenbach, Jerome E., and Jacqueline M. Davies. 1997. Good Reasons for Better Arguments. Ontario: Broadview Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1982. Ce que parler veut dire. Paris, Fayard.Google Scholar
. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power, ed. by John B. Thompson, translated by Gino Raymond and Adamson Matthew. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Burchill, Scott. 2005. The National Interest in International Relations Theory. London & New York: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buttny, Richard and Princess L. Williams. 2000. “Demanding respect: The uses of reported speech in discursive constructions of interracial contact.” Discourse & Society 11(1): 109–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chafetz, Glenn, Michael Spirtas, and Benjamin Frankel. 1999. The Origins of National Interests. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Chilton, Paul. 1988. Orwellian Language and the Media. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
. 2004. Analyzing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007. “Missing Links in Mainstream CDA: Modules, Blends and the Critical Instinct.” In Discourse Studies, vol. 11, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 349–377. London: Sage Publication.Google Scholar
. 2017. “The People’ in Populist Discourse: Using Neuro-cognitive Linguistics to Understand Political Meanings.” Journal of Language and Politics 16(2): 582–594. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chilton, Paul, and Christine Schäffner. 1997. “Discourse and politics.” In Discourse as Social Interaction, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 206–30. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Chilton, Paul, and Christina Schäffner. 2002. “Introduction: Themes and Principles in the Analysis of Political Discourse.” In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse, ed. by Paul Chilton and Christina Schäffner, 1–44. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1988. Language and Politics. Montreal and New York: Black Rose Books.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John S. 2000. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dunmire, Patricia L. 2012. “Political Discourse Analysis: Exploring the Language of Politics and the Politics of Language.” Language and Linguistics Compass 6(11): 73–5751. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enli, Gunn. 2017. “Twitter as Arena for the Authentic Outsider: Exploring the Social Media Campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential Election.” European Journal of Communication 32 (1): 50–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and power. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman, and Ruth Wodak. 1997. “Critical discourse analysis.” In Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, vol. 21, 258–284. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Isabela, and Norman Fairclough. 2012. Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman, and Isabela Fairclough. 2018. “A Procedural Approach to Ethical Critique in CDA.” Critical Discourse Studies 15(2):1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
. 1971. L’ordre du discours. Paris, Gallimard.Google Scholar
. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. by Alen M. Sheridan Smith. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
. 1979. Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, translated by Alen M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Govier, Trudy. 2001. A Practical Study of Argument, 5th edition, Belmont. CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgan. 1971. Erkenninis und Interesse. Frankfurt/main. Shuhrkamp.Google Scholar
. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1979. Communication and the Evolution of Society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
. 1984. Theory of Communicative Action, vols 1 and 2, translated by Thomas McCarthy. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Haqiqat, Sadeq. 1997. Supranational Responsibilities and Islamic Government Foreign Policies. Tehran: Strategic Research Center.Google Scholar
Hodges, Adam and Chad Nilep. 2007. Discourse, War, and Terrorism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Howard, Kahane. 1971. Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life, 11th edition, ed. by Nancy M. Cavender, 2010. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.Google Scholar
Izadi, Dariush. 2013. “Review of Fairclough, Isabela and Norman Fairclough’s Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students.” Discourse & Society 24 (2): 249–252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Robert. 2000. The Global Covenant. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kienpointner, Manfred. 2013. “Review of Fairclough, Isabela and Norman Fairclough’s Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students.” Journal of Language and Politics 12 (2): 295–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kreis, Ramona. 2017. “The ‘Tweet Politics’ of President Trump.” Journal of Language and Politics 16(4): 607–616. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krzyzanowski, Michal. 2010. The Discursive Construction of European Identities: A Multi-Level Approach to Discourse and Identity in the Transforming European Union. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Larijani, Mohammad Javad. 1998. Lessons in Foreign Policy. Tehran: Meshkat.Google Scholar
Millgram, Elijah. 2005. Ethics Done Right: Practical Reasoning as a Foundation for Moral Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, Martin. 2017. “Post-truth Politics? Authenticity, Populism and the Electoral Discourses of Donald Trump.” Journal of Language and Politics 16(4): 619–639. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norris, Christopher. 1992. Uncritical Theory: Postmodernism, Intellectuals, and the Gulf War. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Ott, Brian L. 2017. “The Age of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of Debasement.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 34 (1): 59–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2009. “The discourse historical approach.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 63–94. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. “The ambiguity of ‘Rationality.’” In Pluralism and the pragmatic turn, ed. by William Rehg and James Bohman. 4–152. Cambridge, Massachusetts London: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Holms A. B. 1994. “Review of Norris, Christopher’s Uncritical Theory: Postmodernism, Intellectuals, and the Gulf War.” Modernism/modernity 11: 153–155. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schäffner, Christina. 1997. Political Texts as Sensitive Texts. In Translating sensitive texts, ed. by Karl Simms, 131–138. Amesterdam: Rodpi.Google Scholar
. 2007. Politics and translation. In A Companion to Translation Studies, ed. by Piotr Kuhiwczak and Karin Littau, 137–141. Clevedon: Multilingual matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silberstein, Sandra. 2002. War of Words: Language, Politics, and 9 ⁄ 11. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stögner, Karin, and Karin Bischof. 2017. “International high finance against the nation? Antisemitism and nationalism in Austrian print media debates on the economic crisis.” Journal of Language and Politics 17 (3): 428–446. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tibi, Bassam. 2008. Political Islam, World Politics and Europe: Democratic Peace and Euro-Islam Versus Global Jihad. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 1980. Macrostructures: An Interdisciplinary Study of Global Structures in Discourse, Interaction, and Cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
1988. “Social Cognition, Social Power and Social Discourse.” Text 81: 129–157.Google Scholar
1989. “Mediating racism: The role of the media in the reproduction of racism.” In Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in political Discourse, ed. by Ruth Wodak, 199–226. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1990. “Social cognition and discourse.” In Handbook of Language and Social Psychology, ed. by Howard Giles and Peter W. Robinson, 163–183. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
1993. Elite Discourse and Racism. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997a. “Political Discourse and Racism. Describing Others in Western Parliaments.” In The Language and Politics of Exclusion Others in Discourse, ed. by Stephen H. Riggins, 31–64. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
1997b. “What is political discourse analysis?” Belgian Journal of Linguistics 111: 11–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997c. “Cognitive Context Models and Discourse.” In Language Structure, Discourse and the Access to Consciousness, ed. by Maxim Stamenow, 189–226. Amsterdam, Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1998. “Opinions and ideologies in the press.” In Media Discourse, ed. by Allan Bell and Peter Garrett, 21–63. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2002. “Political Discourse and Political Cognition.” In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse, ed. by Paul Chilton and Christina Schäffner, 203–237. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004. From Text Grammar to Critical Discourse Analysis: A Brief Academic Autobiography. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra.Google Scholar
2005. “Politics, Ideology, and Discourse.” In Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. by Ruth Wodak, 728–740. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
(ed.). 2007. Discourse Studies. London: Sage Publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, T. A. 2008. Discourse and Context: A Sociocognitive Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 2009. Society and Discourse: How Social Contexts Influence Text and Talk. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011. “Discourse, knowledge, power and politics: Toward Critical Epistemic Discourse Analysis.” In Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition, ed. by Christopher Hart, 27–63. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013. “Introduction: The Field of Epistemic Discourse Analysis.” Discourse Studies 15 (5): 497–499. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014. Discourse and Knowledge: A Sociocognitive Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H., and Rob Grootendorst. 2004. A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma- Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo. 2005. “Three Models of Interdisciplinarity.” In New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis: Theory, Methodology and Interdisciplinarity, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Paul Chilton, 3–18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Walton, Douglas. 1990. Practical Reasoning: Goal-Driven, Knowledge-Based, Action-Guiding Argumentation. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
. 2006. Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
. 2007a. Media Argumentation. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007b. “Evaluating Practical Reasoning.” Synthese 1571: 197–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. New York: Cambridge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. (ed.). 1989. Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in political Discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. “The Discourse-historical Approach.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 63–95. London: Sage.Google Scholar
. 2008. “Us’ and ‘Them’: Inclusion and Exclusion-Discrimination via Discourse.” In Identity, Belonging and Migration, ed. by G. Delanty, R. Wodak, and P. Jones, 54–77. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015a. “Critical Discourse Analysis: Discourse-Historical Approach.” In The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, First ed., ed. by Karen Tracy, Cornelia Ilie, and Todd Sandel. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015b. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, Nowak, P., Pelikan, J., Gruber, H., de Cillia, R., & Mitten, R. 1990. “Wir sind alle unschuldige Täter! Diskurshistorische Studien zum Nachkriegsantisemitismus.” Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth and Krzyzanowski, Michal (eds.). 2008. Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl, and Karin Liebhart. 2009. The discursive construction of national identity, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer. 2001. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage Publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Teun A. van Dijk (eds.). 2000. Racism at the Top: Parliamentary Discourses on Ethnic Issues in Six European States. Kkgenfiirt: Drava Verlag.Google Scholar