On The Structure Of Argumentative Discourse Under Toulmin Model

Argumentation,which aims at eliminating differences and seeking consensus,belongs to the interactive act of language.It is generally believed that the research on argumentation could be traced back to ancient Greece at the earliest.In the 1970 s,with the development of informal logic,researchers in various countries begin to focus on the relevant research of argumentation theories,among them Stephen Toulmin’s model of argument is of great contribution in the study of argument.It has been used in analyzing arguments in various fields and proved to be effective.This paper attempts to use it to analyze the arguments in The Republic,a classic of argumentation by Plato,aiming to explore a paradigm for the analysis of the macro-structure of argumentative discourse.Taking Toulmin model as the theoretical framework and UAM Corpus Tool 3.0 as the marking tool,this paper makes a comprehensive and systematic discourse analysis of the first chapter in The Republic through the combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods,and answers the following three questions:(1)How many arguments about justice are included in the first chapter of The Republic and what is the proportion of each argument?(2)What is the claim and supporting evidence of each argument?(3)What is the structure of each argument under Toulmin model?There is a progressive relationship between the research problems proposed in this paper,which means the latter one serves as the benchmark of the previous one.At the same time,the paradigm of argumentative discourse analysis by using Toulmin model could also be derived from the above research questions.Through the analysis,the following three results could be drawn:First,the definition of justice in the first chapter of The Republic consists of three major arguments in accordance with the order of the characters.The main characters involved in the first part are Socrates and Cephalus,accounting for 6.12%,the second one is Socrates and Polemarchus,accounting for 22.63%.The last part is the focus of this chapter and the main characters involved are Socrates and Thrasymachus,accounting for64.53%.All in all,the proportion of each argument could be clearly shown through the specific data.Second,the arguments and supporting evidences of three arguments are illustrated in detail through tables.To put it simply,the content of the chapter covers Socrates’ three refutations to Cephalus,Polemarchus and Thrasymachus.Among them,the refutation to Cephalus is mainly through the example of “ insane man ”,including two arguments and two supporting evidences;the second one is carried out from the relationship between justice and art,including three arguments and supporting evidences;the third one is more complex and logical compared with the above two,which could be divided into two sections.The first section is to refute “ justice is the interests of the strong ”,including two arguments and two supporting evidences.The remaining part is the expansion of the first one,which proves that “ justice is better than injustice,and the righteous are happier than the unjust ”,which also includes two arguments and two supporting evidences.Third,this study uses Toulmin model as a framework to further outline the logic behind Socrates’ argument,and the results are displayed in the form of diagrams,including one diagram that refutes Cephalus’ view,and three of Polemarchus.Besides that,the number of Thrasymachus’ is four.The significance of this study is as follows: first,this study reproves that Toulmin model could be applied to the research of argumentation discourse.Second,the analysis of the arguments in first chapter of The Republic gives a reference for readers to clarify the relationship between characters and logic of the rest chapters and deepen their understanding of the whole book.Third,this study provides a basic paradigm for the study of the global structure of argumentative discourse,following the following steps:interpreting the discourse,identifying the main argument,sub-argument and supporting evidence in the discourse,demonstrating the structure of the argument under Toulmin model,analyzing and evaluating the structure of the argument.