RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric University van Amsterdam, December 12th 2008 A project on Catalan Discourse Coherence (Work in progress) Núria Alturo (Universitat de Barcelona)

1. Visiting the Amsterdam School on Argumentation: Why Pragma-Dialectics? • Education • Research: Barcelona project, Amsterdam project. Pragma-Dialectics: a theory (and its applications), a research program 2. Starting a project on discourse coherence: working questions • What is coherence? • Which is the source of discourse coherence? (or which are the factors contributing to discourse coherence)? • Which is the unit (or units) of analysis of discourse coherence? • Which are the indicators of discourse coherence? 3. What is coherence?, and which is the source of discourse coherence? • Where?: local and global coherence • Why?: semantic and pragmatic (and perhaps others) sources 4. Which is the unit (or units) of analysis of discourse coherence? 1. Some units: • Speech acts • Propositions • Sentences • Intonation units • Text segments 2. Some specific approaches (and other units): • Kehler’s Theory of Coherence (2002, 2004): i. Entities, relations, properties ii. Propositions iii. Complex situations • Polanyi’s Linguistic Discourse Model (1988, 1996, Polanyi et al. 2003): Basic discourse units (BDUs) • The Pragma-Dialectical Theory of Argumentation: Propositions

1. 2. 3. 4.

Martha has left his job. John is working in Berlin We should call Martha Martha has left her job, AND John is working in Berlin Martha has left her job, BUT John is working in Berlin

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El valor de l'aigua The value of water

Només pel fet d'accionar el mecanisme d'una aixeta, un nen d'una ciutat rica dels Estats Units obté prou aigua per beure, rentar-se les dents, dutxar-se, omplir la piscina, rentar el seu gos i regar les plantes del jardí. Només amb el lleuger moviment d'unes petites palanques, la família d'aquest nen gasta una mitjana de 3.000 litres d'aigua diaris. Per a ells l'aigua és un dels productes més barats que consumeixen, molt més barat que els refrescs de cola o que les bosses de patates fregides. Potser és per això que gairebé no la valoren. Podríem dir que pràcticament no s'adonen del que estan consumint: per a ells l'aigua arriba per les canonades amb la mateixa naturalitat amb què cada dia veuen com el sol surt i es pon.

Just by the operating mechanism of a tap, a child of a rich city in the United States gets enough water for drinking, washing his teeth, shower, fill the pool, wash his dog, and water the plants in the garden. Only with the slight movement of small levers, the family of this child spends an average of 3,000 liters of water daily. For them water is one of the cheaper products they consume, much cheaper than cola soft drinks or bags of crisps. Maybe that's why they don't value it. We could say that they almost don't realize what they are consuming: for them, water reaches the water pipes with the same naturalness with which they see every day as the sun rises and sets.

En un llogarret de Kenya, un altre nen ha de caminar cada dia moltes hores fins a arribar a un pou i ajudar la seva mare a portar cap a casa un parell de càntirs d'aigua. La família d'aquest nen gasta, aproximadament, un 0,5 % de l'aigua de què disposa la família del nen americà. La fan servir per a allò que és imprescindible: beure, rentar-se les mans i la cara, cuinar i rentar els estris del menjar. Mesuren amb molta cura cada bol d'aigua i s'ho pensen dues vegades abans de consumir-los. L'aigua no és un recurs il·limitat. Cada 22 de març, Dia Mundial de l'Aigua, l'ONU fa arribar un missatge que canvia ben poc d'un any a l'altre: més de mil milions de persones no tenen accés a aigua neta i salubre, i 1.700 milions no disposen de xarxes per sanejar adequadament les aigües fecals. Una tercera part de les morts que es produeixen arreu del món és conseqüència d'aquestes mancances. Perquè, sense aigua, la vida s'apaga.

In a small village in Kenya, another child has to walk many hours every day to find a well and help his mother to carry home a couple of pitches full of water. The family of this boy spends, approximately, a 0,5% of the water available to the American child family. They use it to what is essential: drinking, washing their hands and face, cooking and washing the dishes. They measure very carefully each glass of water, and think it twice before consuming it. Water is not an unlimited resource. Every 22 of March, World Day of Water, the UN spreads a message that changes very little from year to year: more than one billion people lack access to clean and healthy water, and 1,700 million do not have networks to properly clean up the fecal waters. One third of all deaths that occur around the world is a consequence of these shortcomings. Because, without water, life is extinguished.

R. Ruiz, Estrella 9 (1998)

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(6) Martha has left his job. John is working in Berlin (7) A teenager was shot death this Saturday in Athens. The city lived two days of riots (8) “Argumentation (…) is verbal, social, and rational activity aimed at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint putting forward a constellation of propositions justifying or refuting the proposition expressed in the standpoint” (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 1) (9) PROPOSITION: Miriam is the liveliest woman I met for ages STRUCTURAL UNIT (declarative sentence): “Miriam’s the liveliest woman I’ve met for ages” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 101, 122) (10) PROPOSITION: Miriam should be invited to John’s birthday party STRUCTURAL UNIT (question + answer [interrogative + imperative + PP]): “John: (…) do you think I ought to invite Miriam or not? Harry: Miriam? Definitely ask her. By all means!” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 100, 122) (11) PROPOSITION: Fred lied when he claimed the cliff was 450 feet high The cliff was 200 feet STRUCTURAL UNIT: “two hundred feet, two hundred feet” (Van Eemeren et al. 1993: 65, 84) (12) INDICATORS: obviously, suddenly, at one go, otherwise, anyway, in any case… (van Eemeren et al. 2007) (13) “Sometimes, indicators in the verbal and non-verbal context throw some extra light on which expectations are legitimate. These indicators may vary from words and expressions such as ‘on the other hand’, ‘nevertheless’, and ‘granted that’, to manifestations of a certain authority relation. Some expectations may be defended by an appeal to general or specific background knowledge that helps to envisage a particular context” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 113).

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Handout references and selected bibliography Eemeren, Frans H. van and Rob Grootendorst. 1984. Speech acts in argumentative discussions. A theoretical model for the analysis of discussions directed towards solving conflicts of opinion. Dordrecht/Berlin: Foris Publications/Mouton de Gruyter. Eemeren, Frans H. van and Rob Grootendorst. 2004. A systematic theory of argumentation. The pragmadialectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eemeren, Frans H. van, Rob Grootendorst, Sally Jackson, and Scott Jacobs. 1993. Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press. Eemeren, Frans H. van, Peter Houtlosser and A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans. 2007. Argumentative Indicators in Discourse. A Pragma-Dialectical Study. New York: Springer-Verlag. Garssen, Bart. 2001. Argument Schemes. In Frans H. van Eemeren (ed.) Crucial Concepts in Argumentation Theory. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 81-99. Kehler, Andrew. 2002. Coherence, Reference, and the Theory of Grammar, Stanford, CSLI Publications. Kehler, Andrew. 2004. Discourse Coherence. In Lawrence Horn and Gregory Ward (ed.). The Handbook of Pragmatics. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers. 241-265. Polanyi, Livia. 1988. A formal model of the structure of discourse. Journal of pragmatics, 12: 601-638. Polanyi, Livia. 1996. The linguistic structure of discourse. Technical Report CSLI-96-200, Stanford, Center for the Study of Language and Information. Polanyi, Livia, Martin van Den Berg and David Ahn. 2003. Discourse Structure and Sentential Information Structure. An Initial Proposal. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 12: 337-350. Sanders, Ted J. M. 1997. Semantic and Pragmatic Sources of Coherence: On the Categorization of Coherence Relations in Context. Discourse Processes, 24: 119-147. Snoeck Henkemans, A. Francisca. 2001a. Argumentation, explanation and causality. An exploration of current linguistic approaches to textual relations. In Ted Sanders, Joost Schilperoord and Wilbert Spooren (ed.) Text Representation. Linguistic and psycholinguistic aspects. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 231-246. Snoeck Henkemans, A. Francisca. 2001b. Argumentation Structures. In Frans H. van Eemeren (ed.) Crucial Concepts in Argumentation Theory. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 101-134.

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