Argumentation Jun 2021 Open Access

“Those are Your Words, Not Mine!” Defence Strategies for Denying Speaker Commitment

Ronny Boogaart Leiden University ; Henrike Jansen Leiden University ; Maarten van Leeuwen Leiden University

Abstract

AbstractIn response to an accusation of having said something inappropriate, the accused may exploit the difference between the explicit contents of their utterance and its implicatures. Widely discussed in the pragmatics literature are those cases in which arguers accept accountability only for the explicit contents of what they said while denying commitment to the (alleged) implicature (“Those are your words, not mine!”). In this paper, we sketch a fuller picture of commitment denial. We do so, first, by including in our discussion not just denial of implicatures, but also the mirror strategy of denying commitment to literal meaning (e.g. “I was being ironic!”) and, second, by classifying strategies for commitment denial in terms of classical rhetorical status theory (distinguishing between denial, redefinition, an appeal to ‘external circumstances’ or to a ‘wrong judge’). In addition to providing a systematic categorization of our data, this approach offers some clues to determine when such a defence strategy is a reasonable one and when it is not.

Journal
Argumentation
Published
2021-06-01
DOI
10.1007/s10503-020-09521-3
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Topics
classical rhetoric rhetorical criticism discourse analysis editorial matter
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

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    Reasonable Reconstruction of Socratic Irony in Public Discourse
    Argumentation

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CrossRef global citation count: 24 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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