Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
CHRONICLE
VOL. 1, NO. 1
In this issue
MA degree DASA……………………………………………………………………………15
Announcements…………………………………………………………………………….17
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Thesis summary
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directly; instead, the company chose to defend issues such as why people should
opt for biotechnological rather than traditional farming methods. It also appeared
that many crucial arguments remained implicit in the advertisements and that the
arguments presented did not address the real threats of GM food. The analysis
also revealed that, in light of the model for a critical discussion, most of the
dialectical stages remained implicit.
The way the standpoints, the arguments and the dialectical stages were
presented in the advertisements had to be explained by analysing strategic
manoeuvring. For Monsanto, this meant the way it managed to maintain the
balance between its commitments to the other discussants, the general public,
and its rhetorical ambitions as a corporation aiming to promote its products and
enhance its image. In order for Monsanto to succeed in this, it had to be able to
promote its controversial products, while maintaining the image of a responsible
company. It was observed that Monsanto attempted to mitigate its difference of
opinion with its audience, either by means of indirect standpoints or by giving a
weak version of the dispute. The analysis also showed that the company tried to
make use of widely accepted truths in order to confer credibility on its claims.
Monsanto’s disclaimers at the end of its advertisements did imply that the
company could not resolve the GM dispute, although most of its advertisements
were concluded with a plea for raising trust in biotechnology. In general,
Monsanto’s advertisements, especially through the implicit arguments and
standpoints, were more inclined to promote the company’s products than to
enhance its image as a committed company.
By this summary, I have tried to give a general idea about what my thesis was
about. For the sake of concision many equally important points were left out.
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calls Kerry a Flip-Flopper (ad hominem attack) and Kerry retorts that Bush is a
Flip-Flopper too (tu quoque). Vice President Cheney argues that America will be
attacked again if Kerry is elected (appeal to fear), while Senator Edwards replies
that Bush caused the economic downturn because it took place after he came to
office (post hoc ergo propter hoc). As I write this, the presidential debates are
taking place and providing me with a multitude of material for my analyses
(“What! I can’t believe Mr. Bush is trying to falsely present that premise as an
acceptable starting point for this discussion! That is completely unreasonable!”).
For now, my interest in persuasive communications is satisfied by the current
political situation. But, what will become of me if I am still jobless after the
November 2nd elections? Perhaps there will be another tie, just like in 2000; it is
not outside the realm of possibility given the very close polls. If so, then rest
assured that I am busy analyzing who said what about the election results and
providing my insights to anyone who will listen. An electoral tie would mean that
flocks of lawyers would certainly become involved, providing me with all the more
rhetorical discourse to examine. There would be countless opportunities for my
amateur political punditry. Lawyers would be earning loads of money off an
election debacle; why couldn’t I?
Perhaps I am getting a bit ahead of myself. Just now, I received a phone call
from an international organization; they have offered me a position managing
their overseas internship program! It seems now that I will be gainfully employed
after the elections. What a relief! But what about Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry? Which
one of them will have a job after the elections? By the time you read this, we will
(hopefully) know.
In the spring of 1992, I saw a call for graduate participation in a newly formed
program at the University of Amsterdam called “Discourse Analysis and Argument
Studies” (DASA, for short). Having fond memories of the Netherlands from my
days as a backpacking student while studying at the University of Essex as an
undergraduate, this announcement immediately caught my eye. Of course, it was
a pipe dream; I was in the middle of my own graduate studies at the University
of Iowa, and since there was no formal exchange program (it was Northwestern
who first fruitfully cultivated this kind of relationship), it would be exceedingly
difficult, not to mention prohibitively expensive (aside from forfeiting a teaching
assistantship), to take any time off.
But curiosity got the cat, and I explored further. I was drawn not only to the
place, but also by the people and the work that they did. As someone trained in
rhetoric and social theory, the Amsterdam approach to argumentation was
admittedly different from that with which I was familiar. But that was part of the
point, I think; I found it tremendously appealing and incredibly timely to begin to
think outside of the box, and consider the benefits of other perspectives. It was
an important and formative juncture in my graduate education.
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wheeled transportation from a less than reputable source (I am not sure if Bart
Garssen and Peter Houtlosser have ever forgiven me!), and toilet paper from
HEMA, I was ready for my Amsterdam adventure.
I lived on the far East side of the city in a unique hospital near Flevopark. On one
side lived kind retired Dutch nationals, and the other side housed a group of
rowdy, but generally respectful students. It was an interesting and enlightening
mix. Just up the street from the hospital was the local watering hole, the Cruise
Inn, which housed a delightful assortment of American 50’s memorabilia, songs,
and a clientele as rockabilly as any I have ever seen in the United States. It was
simply an unusual and warming experience.
My time at the University of Amsterdam, in and outside the DASA program, was
perhaps the best experience in my life. Since those early days, now over ten
years ago, the DASA program, and the International Society for the Study of
Argumentation, has only grown in significance and stature. While my friends in
Amsterdam and I continue to work in different veins, I will always be grateful for
the memorable experiences and lifelong friendships.
Amjarso: Dr. Agnès van Rees, welcome to this interview. Before we start
talking about what you’ve been doing in this department, I would first
like to take you back some year in time and ask what you were doing and
where you were before you came to this department.
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Van Rees: Well, that’s more than just some years. I came to this department in
1971, more than 33 years ago. I was a young person just graduated at the
University of Leiden. I had studied Dutch Language and Literature for four years,
and then I switched over to General Linguistics, with a minor of Psycholinguistics.
I spent three years studying that. You can see, at that time we studied seven
years instead of four years now. I had my Doctorandus title, the equivalent of the
Master. And I was thinking of what I would like to do, and I knew I would not
want to teach at a secondary school; that’s too difficult for me.
That’s the same choice I was about to make last year by the way.
And then I saw an advertisement here from the University of Amsterdam for new
personnel in the Speech Communication department, and, in my innocence, I
applied even though in my course of studies I never had had Speech
Communications, so I quickly borrowed some notebooks from the guy who, once
I had turned over to General Linguistics, started giving speech communication in
the Dutch department, and I quickly read through that, and so I went to my
interview and they took me.
At the time when you joined this department, I am sure it was much
smaller than it is now.
Faculty staff.
No, actually it was not. Let me see. Was it even larger than it is now? I have the
idea it might even have been a little bit larger than now. See, the faculty of this
department has changed over the years. The Speech Communication department
was installed at the University of Amsterdam in the fifties, after the Second World
War. And originally it was a department that was supposed to teach people to
speak better, to write better and to read better.
It was a skills department, teaching students skills. And it was not very
theoretical at the time. So at that time in the department there were people who
were there because they could teach skills very well, speech communication
skills. In the seventies, there were a few people who still are here, Frans van
Eemeren was there, Rob Grootendorst--of course he isn’t with us any more--was
there at the time.
Yes. When I came in. They had been there for something like one or two years.
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And then there were a whole lot of people who are no longer with us, and that is
because they took a different direction in their interests and in their research.
During the seventies there was a lot of turmoil in the university and in the
department also: The discipline was evolving at that time, and so you got a lot of
strife between different conceptions of what the discipline should be, and so what
happened was a that number of people developed in a different direction and
they gradually left the department to do what they wanted to do elsewhere. So in
the meantime, the group that eventually stayed is the group that developed this
pragma-dialectical framework, but also had very explicit ideas about what an
academic curriculum should be, and how it should be taught. That group
attracted comparatively younger people: Francisca Snoek Henkemans, Eveline
Feteris, and Peter Houtlosser. Anyway, so gradually that group filled out again.
So basically, I wouldn’t say that we have either less or so many more people than
we used to have, we have a somewhat evolved group of people.
That’s right.
Well, because of the quality of the work obviously. Seriously, from quite an early
time on we saw the importance of international collaboration. I mean we learned
a lot from colleagues in other countries and we thought there could be a fruitful
exchange of insights with these various colleagues. From early on, Frans and Rob
went to conferences in America and later on the other members of the
department joined them and from that time on we also started publishing in
English, making our insights internationally available, and of course Rob and
Frans have edited various international journals and founded the journal of
Argumentation and created a international forum. Not to forget the ISSA
conferences, of course.
For the last couple of years, one trend has been affecting the University
of Amsterdam as a whole, which is what is called in Dutch
internationalisering.
Yes. We were very advanced. In fact, we are one of the very early, maybe the
first program in the faculty of Humanities that went international. The DASA
program was started in 1991, and that was way before anybody in the faculty
thought of doing that.
When people come, they bring with them a diversity of perspectives and
insights. Are you not afraid that one day the central nucleus of this
department, namely the pragma-dialectical approach, will be lost and
some decentralisation will take place?
No. I am not afraid of that because people come here, to begin with, with an
interest in argumentation and with an interest in the perspectives that we bring
towards the study of that subject. So I think that the people who come are eager
to learn the approach, and they, of course, add to it their own thing, but that is
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only within a very well defined theoretical framework. I mean we have a strong
theoretical framework, and that makes it possible to evolve coherently.
You have been talking about how the department has developed. Since
you came in, you must have developed intellectually as well. Can you just
give me an idea about the different research areas that have attracted
your attention since you joined this department?
Sure. Well, first I was very linguistically oriented, also having to do with the
teaching that I had to do. I had to jump in and start preparing stuff. The first
thing I got interested in was Sociolinguistics. I published something about
register at that time. At the same time, Frans, Rob, and I started a reading group
in which we read Searle’s work and discussed it. Of course, that’s one of the
influences on the work that Rob and Frans developed, pragma-dialectics. I got
very interested in that and I wrote my dissertation on questions within that
theory.
In 1982. So there was a switch from Sociolinguistics to Speech Act Theory. Then
at the same time I was not doing research in an Argumentation theory proper,
but kept very well informed about what was happening here. That is the nice
thing of working in such a close-knit group. But again because I had to teach
Conversation Analysis, I became interested in that aspect, and then I started
thinking about how Speech Act Theory and conversation analysis could be
integrated, keeping the best of both worlds, so to say. Then later in the nineties,
I started combining those two interests, Speech Act Theory-Conversation
Analysis, with Argumentation Theory because then I started to do research in
Problem-Solving Discussions, and then I could use all those background insights
in doing that. And then, during the last five years or so, evolving from that
interest in problem solving discussions, I started upon the topic of Dissociation,
which is used a lot in ordinary discussion. So here again, a combination of
interests in argumentation theory and linguistics and in ordinary language use
helps me.
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Oh, I like it. I find it challenging. The strange thing is I still always, after 33
years, am a little bit nervous at the beginning of the semester, and I still find it
very challenging because you never know what happens and what questions
people may ask, and the questions that people ask force you to be as clear as
you can about your own thoughts, and that is inspiring. What I specifically like
though is teaching foreign students, is teaching in the DASA program or the RAP
program. I have been doing that now for quite a number of years, and I love
doing that because the students come with a genuine interest in what we have to
tell them.
Yeah.
Oh, my! What I hope and expect and also foresee is that international teaching
and international research will grow, and I find that a very positive development.
I think that more and more the university world will become internationalised,
and of course our new PhD curriculum also will create an avenue for that, and I
hope and expect that we’ll grow in that respect, and I consider that to be a good
thing.
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Eventually I would like to have a job where I can rewrite or interpret texts.
Another option would be working within the field of communication or other
information work.
Some classes we have together with the students of the Research MA in Logic,
Language and Argumentation. This can be an advantage because you can learn
more by listening to what they have to say, but on the other hand it can also be a
disadvantage as we might not be interested in the same topics.
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This MA is meant for students who are motivated to study, because this program
is demanding. The program is a good choice for students who have a background
in Humanities or Social Sciences. The program is rather theoretical; therefore I
would say that this program is suitable for students who wish to carry on with a
PhD program.
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theory, (in)formal logic and rhetoric, so that they will be enabled to carry out
thorough and theoretically justified analyses, case studies and other types of
investigations of real-life discussions and texts.
The Program
The general curriculum consists of core courses, specific courses, electives or
tutorials and (the writing of) a research thesis. Depending on the specific
background of each individual student, and the qualifications the student has
already acquired, the program director will decide, after consulting the instructors
concerned, which (parts of) courses may be replaced by electives or tutorials.
The program for Rhetoric, Argumentation theory and Philosophy consists of the
following ingredients:
Student profile
The Research Master's degree program in Rhetoric, Argumentation and
Philosophy welcomes, after careful selection, students with a Bachelor degree or
equivalent in a field relevant to the program including (speech) communication,
philosophy, rhetoric, and language and communication. Admission, however, is
not necessarily limited to those coming from these fields.
Students with a Master's degree who wish to enter a Research Master's degree
program that is directly related to their intellectual background should, as a rule,
be able to complete the program in one year. They are invited to apply to the
admission committee, which will assess each candidate individually.
Career prospects
The Research Master's degree program in Rhetoric, Argumentation and
Philosophy will equip students with the insights, knowledge and skills necessary
for any academic or social career concerned with, or depending on, analytic
capabilities, critical thinking skills and rhetorical insights. The program provides
first of all a sound basis for PhD research in Rhetoric, Argumentation theory,
Philosophy of language and Cultural analysis. It offers at the same time a sound
basis for those professions in which critical analysis, sound evaluation and
sophisticated production of argumentative discourse play an important part.
Admission requirements
Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in a relevant field to the program such as
linguistics, (speech) communication, or philosophy.
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The program
A complete program will encompass between 60 and 90 ECTS
credits of academic work, depending on the student’s
qualifications. The actual number of course credits a student must obtain will be
determined by the Admissions Committee. Fulfilling all the requirements will take
between one and one and a half years. Given the unique character of this
program and its advanced level most students must expect to need more than
one year to fulfil all requirements.
To complete the program, all students must write a master’s thesis.
Student profile
The master’s program in Discourse and Argumentation Studies seeks students
with a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a field relevant to the program such as
linguistics, (speech) communication, or philosophy.
Career prospects
This master’s program will equip students with the skills and insights necessary
for any career concerned with the critical analysis, evaluation, and production of
argumentative discourse. This includes evaluating and commenting on texts (for
example as an MP’s or lawyer’s assistant), writing persuasive texts and policy
documents, and writing other people’s texts. The program also prepares students
for doing further research in the field.
Admission requirements
Bachelor’s degree ( or equivalent) in a field relevant to the program such as
linguistics, (speech) communication, or philosophy.
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Guest lectures
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Eemeren, F.H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002, Eds.). Dialectic and Rhetoric: The
Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis. Dordrecht etc.: Kluwer Academic.
Eemeren, F.H. van, Blair, J.A., Willard, C.A., & Snoeck Henkemans, A.F. (2003,
Eds.). Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the
Study of Argumentation. Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Eemeren, F.H. van, Blair, J.A., Willard, C.A., & Snoeck Henkemans, A.F. (2003,
Eds.). Anyone Who Has a View. Theoretical Contributions to the Study of
Argumentation. Dordrecht etc.: Kluwer Academic Publishers, Argumentation
Library.
Komlósi L.I., Houtlosser, P., & Leezenberg, M. (2003, Eds.), Communication and
Culture. Argumentative, Cognitive and Linguistic Perspectives. Amsterdam: Sic
Sat.
Announcements
LLA turns RAP
The name of the Research master Logic, Language and Argumentation (LLA) was
confusing and has now been changed into Rhetoric, Argumentation Theory and
Philosophy (RAP).
RAP accredited
We want to send this Chronicle to all the RAP and DASA alumni of the
department. If you happen to know e-mail addresses of fellow alumni, please
write to M.R. Denslagen: tar.secr-fgw@uva.nl.
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