ABSTRACT

This chapter clarifies the meaning of argumentation, looks at argumentative analysis in relation to discourse analysis (DA) and provides an overview of a few contemporary approaches, some normative such as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and some non-committed and analytical. It follows an argumentative and discursive approach to political discourse –mainly borrowed from Amossy's 'argumentation in discourse', exemplified on a UN speech delivered by Israeli Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu. Before going back to argumentation analysis of political discourse, a short comment on the way the connection between (rhetorical) argumentation and DA has been viewed in different theoretical frameworks is needed. The chapter distinguishes normative approaches based on CDA and mainly drawing on Pragma-dialectics, from non-normative DA approaches aiming at analytical understanding rather than assessment, based on the tradition of rhetorical argumentation and Perelman's and Olbrechts Tyteca's New rhetoric. Argumentation in discourse unveils the mechanisms of the discourse without engaging in explicit critique – it analyses without assessing.