An Analysis Of Argument Scheme In Financial Reviews

Argument is regarded as one of the significant modes used by rhetoricians for thepurpose of persuasion, which can be traced back to syllogism and its truncated form putforward by Aristotle whose argument models are accompanied with some flaws. Thedisadvantages of formal logic inference like monotony of objects and absoluteness ofconclusions are surmounted by contemporary rhetorical argument theories, among which theargument scheme of Stephen Toulmin has a far-reaching and comprehensive influence on thedevelopment of rhetorical argument because of its extensibility and humanity. Toulminbelieved that argument is a process starting from facts to claims by the backing of reasons.The first triad, including data, warrant, and claim, is the most important foundation. Inaddition to this, there is another triad, consisting of backing, qualifier, and rebuttal, inToulmin’s argument scheme, which is applied to embellish the previous three elements. Thisargument scheme distinctly presents its argument process to people, helping the audiencebetter understand how the arguers take advantage of the argument to successfully talk theminto accepting the views. Financial reviews are timely interpretations for the current hot economic issues andeconomic phenomena, which are viewed as important economic information. Takingadvantage of various argument techniques to illustrate and analyze the economic issues,financial reviews have a significant impact on audiences’cognition and economic decisions,acting as an indirect guidance of economic activities. The rhetorical purpose of financialreviews is to persuade the audiences to accept its financial point of views. Stephan Toulmin’sargument scheme, in this case, can provide a new perspective to the analysis of financialreviews. This paper takes financial reviews chosen from Financial Times, a Britain newspaper, asanalyzing material, and adopts the qualitative method as its research method, aiming to makean analysis on the argument scheme of financial reviews with the argumentative theories of Stephen Toulmin as well as enthymeme and three rhetorical appeals proposed by Aristotle. It is of great help for the audiences to gain the valuable economic information with high efficiency and, thereby, make sensible economic decisions by showing the argument process of financial reviews. The thesis, to begin with, introduces the aims of this study and the research questions, reviews the studies on financial reviews and argument home and abroad; then the paper elaborates the theoretical framework, making an introduction to Toulmin’s argument scheme and Aristotle’ syllogism and enthymeme. After that, it illustrates financial reviews and their argumentative purposes, makes specific analysis on the argument scheme of financial reviews using Aristotle’s theories and Toulmin’s argument scheme. The thesis, in the end, summarizes the major finding and suggestions for further studies of financial reviews.This research shows that Toulmin’s argument scheme is beneficial to the analysis of financial reviews, providing a new angle to enrich the study of financial reviews and commentary discourse.