Strategic Maneuvering In Argumentative Discourse

Argumentation is pervasive in verbal communication. Studies on argumentation from the logical perspective can be traced back to Aristotle’s instrumentalism. In other words, argumentation has long been researched in the field of logic. However, domestic researches on argumentation still need to be further excavated with regard to systematicness, innovation and application.This paper, through the analysis of an open letter published by USW in the China-US special safeguard disputes on tires imports, intends to fulfill two major purposes:(1) revealing the argumentative structure and frame of this public letter;(2) analyzing the rhetorical devices and possible argument fallacies in this letter. With these two purposes, this paper explores three interrelated research questions:(1) How does the letter realize its argumentative reasonableness from the dialectical perspective?(2) How does the letter realize its argumentative effectiveness from the rhetorical perspective?(3)How about the argumentative effect of the letter from the perspective of argument fallacy?In line with the research objectives and questions, this paper first analyzes the argumentative structure of this letter and divided it into four argumentative stages. Then, this paper investigates argumentative reasonability and effectiveness of this letter, and enlightens the rhetorical strategies manipulated in this letter in terms of the topical potential, audience demands and presentational devices, under the analytic framework of "strategic maneuvering". At last, this paper analyzes the possible argumentative fallacies in this letter.Research results show that, the strategic maneuvering in USW public letter is realized through choice of topical potential, catering for audience demands and choice of presentational devices, which is supported by such argumentative strategies as appeal to authority, presupposition, metaphor, contrast, truism, nomination; avoidance of disadvantages, catering for audience’s preference, generalization, parallelism, concession, and the like. Meanwhile, argument fallacies in strategic maneuvering mainly includes appeal to authority, argumentum ad hominem, argumentum ad populum, burden of proof, false reason, presupposition fallacy etc..