When political actors respond to criticism by pointing at an inconsistency in the critic’s position, a tricky political practice emerges. Turning the criticism back to the critic can be a constructive move that restores coherence, but it may also be a disruptive move that silences the critical voice and obstructs accountability. What distinguishes constructive cases from disruptive ones? This is the question this book sets out to answer. The question is addressed by adopting an argumentative perspective. Argumentation in Prime Minister’s Question Time focuses on the turnabout employed by the British Prime Minister in response to the Leader of the Opposition. The turnabout is characterised as a particular way of strategic manoeuvring. The manoeuvring is analysed and evaluated by combining pragmatic, dialectical and rhetorical insights with considerations from the realm of politics. The outcome is an account of the turnabout’s strategic functions and an assessment guide for evaluating its reasonableness. The book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of argumentation, discourse analysis, communication and rhetoric.

Prime Minister's Questions is the bear pit of British politics. Watched and admired around the world, it is often hated at home for bringing out the worst in our politicians. Yet despite successive leaders trying to get away from Punch and Judy politics, it's here to stay. Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton spent five years preparing Ed Miliband for the weekly joust, living through the highs and lows, tension and black humour of the political front line. In this insightful and often hilarious book, including an updated afterword discussing the key events of 2018, they lift the lid on PMQs and what it's really like to ready the leader for combat. Drawing on personal recollections from key players including Tony Blair, David Cameron, Harriet Harman, William Hague and Vince Cable alongside their unique knowledge, Hazarika and Hamilton take you behind the scenes of some of the biggest PMQs moments.

"Examining Argumentation in Context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering "contains a selection of papers on strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse. Starting point of all of these contributions is that a satisfactory analysis and evaluation of strategic maneuvering is possible only if the argumentative discourse is first situated in the communicative and interactional context in which it occurs. While some of the contributions present general views with regard to strategic maneuvering, other contributions report on the results of empirical studies, examine strategic maneuvering in a particular legal or political context, or highlight the presentational design of strategic maneuvering. "Examining Argumentation in Context" therefore provides an insightful" "view of recent developments in the research on strategic maneuvering, which is currently prominent in the study of argumentation.

Investigates the underrepresentation of women in politics, by examining how language use constructs and maintains gender inequalities in political institutions.

This book traces the issue in argumentative discussions from its emergence to its evolution. The book makes use of naturally occurred data of spoken argumentation to investigate how an issue is raised and possibly negotiated in argumentative discussions between young children (aged 2 to 6 years) and adults. The author proposes a typology of the emergence of issues based on the argumentative agency of the interlocutors. Moreover, the investigation sheds light on how issues evolve through negotiation among the involved interlocutors and how issues may be related to the interlocutors’ endoxa. By applying an interdisciplinary approach including argumentation theory (the pragma-dialectical model of a critical discussion and the Argumentum Model of Topics) as well as sociocultural developmental psychology this work allows for a careful consideration of the many aspects that come into play when young children start or engage in an argumentative discussions with adults.

The book offers a compact but comprehensive introductory overview of the crucial components of argumentation theory. In presenting this overview, argumentation is consistently approached from a pragma-dialectical perspective by viewing it pragmatically as a goal-directed communicative activity and dialectically as part of a regulated critical exchange aimed at resolving a difference of opinion. As a result, the book also systematically explains how the constitutive parts of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, which are discussed in a number of separate publications, hang together. The following crucial topics are discussed: (1) argumentation theory as a discipline; (2) the meta-theoretical principles of pragma-dialectics; (3) the model of a critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion; (4) fallacies as violations of a code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse; (5) descriptive research of argumentative reality; (6) analysis as theoretically-motivated reconstruction; (7) strategic manoeuvring aimed at combining achieving effectiveness with maintaining reasonableness; (8) the conventionalization of argumentative practices; (9) prototypical argumentative patterns; (10) pragma-dialectics amidst other approaches. Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective is clearly written and makes argumentation theory understandable to all scholars and advanced students interested in argumentation research.

In "Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse," Frans H. van Eemeren" "brings together the dialectical and the rhetorical dimensions of argumentation by introducing the concept of strategic maneuvering. Strategic maneuvering refers to the arguer s continual efforts to reconcile aiming for effectiveness with being reasonable. It takes place in all stages of argumentative discourse and manifests itself simultaneously in the choices that are made from the topical potential available at a particular stage, in adaptation to audience demand, and in the use of specific presentational devices. Strategic maneuvering derails when in the specific context in which the discourse takes place a rule for critical discussion has been violated, so that a fallacy has been committed. Van Eemeren makes clear that extending the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation by taking account of strategic maneuvering leads to a richer and more precise method for analyzing and evaluating argumentative discourse."

This book concentrates on argumentation as it emerges in ordinary discourse, whether the discourse is institutionalized or strictly informal. Crucial concepts from the theory of argumentation are systematically discussed and explained with the help of examples from real-life discourse and texts. The basic principles are explained that are instrumental in the analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse. Methodical instruments are offered for identifying differences of opinion, analyzing and evaluating argumentation and presenting arguments in oral and written discourse. Attention is also paid to the way in which arguers attempt to be not just reasonable, but effective as well, by maneuvering strategically. In addition, the book provides a great variety of exercises and assignments to improve the student’s skill in presenting argumentation. The authors begin their treatment of argumentation theory at the same juncture where argumentation also starts in practice: The difference of opinion that occasions the evolvement of the argumentation. Each chapter begins with a short summary of the essentials and ends with a number of exercises that students can use to master the material. Argumentation is the first introductory textbook of this kind. It is intended as a general introduction for students who are interested in a proper conduct of argumentative discourse. Suggestions for further reading are made for each topic and several extra assignments are added to the exercises. Special features: • A concise and complete treatment of both the theoretical backgrounds and the practice of argumentation analysis and evaluation. • Crucial concepts from pragmatics (speech act theory, Grice’s cooperative principle) presented in a non-technical way; introducing the theory of verbal communication. • The first textbook treatment of strategic maneuvering as a way of balancing being reasonable with being effective • Exercises and assignments based on real-life texts from a variety of contexts.

The goal of this volume is to further the examination of the role, shape, and quality of argumentation in political deliberation. The chapters collected in the volume employ the concepts and methods developed within argumentation theory to investigate the specifics of political discourse across various deliberative arenas: from debates in the European Parliament, consensus conferences and public hearings in France, discussions in Dutch online forums, to exchanges of comments in online versions of British newspapers. In this way, the studies reveal the inner workings of argumentative interactions that constitute deliberative discourse – and thus importantly contribute to the study of public deliberation. This should be of interest to the students of argumentation, deliberation, and political discourse. In addition, the volume problematizes and theorizes some vital issues related to the study of situated argumentation, thus advancing the study of argumentation in context. Originally published in Journal of Argumentation in Context, Vol. 2:1 (2013).