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COMPARATIVE APPROACH
In the course of this overview I wish to bring a clear vision to bear on several
aspects and ways of legitimation, and the relationships between the theory of legitimation
and main theories of the argumentation. Our first step will be to discern different notions
relationships. If this point is clear, then we can analyse the necessary connection that must
The start point will be the fact that new theories of argumentation tries to focus on
procedures and means of evidence to get adherence and support. Deliberation and
argumentation are opposed to necessity and evidence, given that deliberation is not
necessary in the cases in which the solution is mandatory and, besides, one never exposes
an argument against evidence. The domain of the argumentation is the domain of the
probability and the likeliness. The idea of evidence as a characteristic of the reasoning is
fundamental to understand and analyze theories of argumentation. It admits the use of the
reason to have influence on others and to give a sense to our actions (Perelman and
Olbrechts, 1989). The evidence appears as a sign of truth. The goal of this theory is to
discover the technical moves and strategies that allow to provoke or to amplify the degree
language, following the most recent theories contributed by Ducrot and Anscombre,
whose principle has to do with the Pragmatics and that sustains that language contains an
ideological charge that makes the communication possible. That means that some
semantics which integrates pragmatic elements. This is particularly clear in the case of the
rational explanations, moral evaluations or even statements from authorities, because the
argument is powerful as long as there is a system of beliefs, values and norms supporting
it and therefore performing beyond the limits of the content (Anscombre & Ducrot, 1994).
The argumentation exists because the words are connected with each other, and because
this connectiveness is not a mere representation of what is said but it yields to the inherent
The legitimation is a process by which some consensual values are used as main
resources. Actually, legitimation has also a strategic function, which is very closed to
closely conected to the notion of power. Group power may specifically be based on
coordination in action, transmits and vehiculize common goals, norms and values, and
allows ideologies to be shared through the group (Van Dijk, 1987). In this sense, and as
we mentioned some lines above, power may be enacted through argumentative discourse
forms such as scholarly reports, assessments, discussions, that show which actions have
discourse, is to use some strategies within the framework of some accepted norms
then, supposes the existence of a necessity of adapting the discourse to which will be the
final interpreter of it (Mortara Garavelli, 1988). For this, it might be very clear that
between the one who intends to communicate something and the one who must decode it,
there is a link of knowledge, interests and values in common. This urge for
argumentation (Foucault, 1971; Martín Rojo & Callejo, 1996), and it implies the use of
strategies that we shall see in the next paragraphs, like denial, mitigation, generalization,
etc... It allows the creation of self-knowledge, defining and establishing what is normality
WAYS OF LEGITIMATION
Theo van Leeuwen explains very conciously and systematically the ways in which
the legatimation takes place. He comments two of them. They have to do with the
places, actors or times. These tools involve interpretation; they are not simple
We guess they can be employed at a semantic level (like the use of neologisms,
archaisms, etc...) that can stamp to the text an aspect of authority; or they could be
employed at the rhetoric level like deictic strategies or anaphoras used to mitigate or to
emphasize some subjects of the text. Maybe deictics and anaphoras are the clearest
example of variable lexical and syntactic expressions, which we identify with style. And
(in)formality of the social situation, social dimensions (power, status, position, gender) of
the participants in a communicative act (Van Dijk, 1987). Anaphoras and deictics
produces an stylistic effect on semantic moves which often implies indirectness and
vagueness. An example of the use of anaphora could be the use of some lexical options in
the news of some newspapers to define a sexual assilant. They vary from "the aggressor"
to "the defendant" or "the condemned man". Whereas the first implies a judgement by
which we can discern that for the narrator the alleged assilant is clearly the assilant, the
lattest reproduce the point of view of the justice, following the several steps of a trial: a
"condemned person" is someone that, in the eyes of the penal system, is a criminal and
therefore deserves a punishment. The use of such anaphoras reveals the degree of
adhesion to the accepted norms and to the representatives of those norms (Martín Rojo &
Callejo Gallego, 1996). We should mention that this deictic aspect has to do with the
theory of the poliphony of enuntiation, created by Ducrot, according to which the text is
penetrated by different voices. Every voice reflects its own power and the place it
occupies in the social hierarchy (Ducrot, 1986). In a certain way, it has to do with what
Foucault calls "multiple relationships of power that are inserted in the social body" and, in
discourses of truth, so that we are subjugated to the production of the truth by power and
we can exerce power only through the production of truth (Foucault, 1984).
terms, could be realized through repetition of some elements or through accumulation (for
instance, evocation of details). Again, we can find additions in the lexical field, like the
use of pleonasms. I choose a new example from the newspapers. In the stories dealing
with sexual assault it is very common to use pleonasms to define some crimes: "deshonest
abuse" (it gives the impression that there are abuses that are somehow honest), "indecent
assault" (id), "unfair humiliation" (id), etc...Additions at the rhetoric level include the use
conceptualization of something through anything else (Lakkof & Johnson, 1995). It also
means the partialization of the concept. These moves confer a paradigmatic distance to
the expressed idea (Le Guern, 1990). This relationship between the two elements implied
comes from ideological uses and social values. In this sense we have to mention the use
of connectives. Some authors like Perelman or Auerbach give several suggestions to deal
with them. The connectives, in the field we are dealing with now, serve to link structures
that, connected to each other, allow to reach a conclusion or to make a decision, so that
power is legitimated. Argumentation, in the end, works through evidences and those
1988).
(Fairclough, 1992; Hodge & Kress, 1979). Addition and substitution create a
manipulation in the form, because they change and transform the syntactic function or the
A) AUTHORIZATION:
gives preferential access to discourses to elite sources, institutions and other actors that
have well organized discourses, and are able to manufacture credibility through strategies
that normally are argumentative or, at least, persuasive (Van Dijk, 1992, Text, Talk, Elites
and racism).
A detailed analysis of the concept of social power reveals that it is a kind of power
enacted by social groups and institutions. Power of individuals is a simple reflect derived
from the membership of socially dominant groups or social position or status. This social
power is basically connected to the notion of control: the one who has power, can control
others´ mind and, at the same time, is grounded in values socially accepted and firmly
rooted (Van Dijk, 1992b, Disc, power and access). The succesful control is carried out
through institutionalization, rationalization and reproduction. But, above all, powerful
individuals and groups are more represented in the public discourses and have a special
acces to them (Van Dijk, 1992b; Galtung and Ruge, 1965; Gans, 1979). This possibility of
access means also to be able to organize agenda´s and to choose topics. This is the real
link between authorization and the argumentative structures and other properties of the
discourse that sustain it. That can be translated into an ability to set constraints on the
concepts and visions of the reality, and to create consent. They can define what is
normality and what is deviation (Martín Rojo & Callejo, 1996; Foucault, 1971).
Because these sources, institutions and voices are legitimized by time and
experience, they don´t need to rationalize their arguments. As a matter of fact, they use
their own position as argument. That is what is the argumentative field is called
acts of somebody (group, individual) as the means of proving a thesis. Nevertheless, and
as many theoreticians like Pareto remark, this argument is a fallacy, because not always
the evoked arguments are infalible. Of course, these arguments can work as long as a
large majority gives its consent. Some rhetoric moves of communion, like quotes or
allusions, or the use of refrains, cliches and associations can be succesful thanks to the
social conviction supported by the tradition. All these manouvers are used as instruments
models are the equivalent of the illustrations and examples in the practical action:
they are evoked to establish or planify a general rule of behaving. In this way, from an
accepted model comes up a new model which will again be accepted by consent
B) RATIONALIZATION:
The arguments that cannot be fixed by authority, necessarily have to have some
legitimation and serves to a specific goal, that must be socially presented as positive and
beneficial.
We agree with Luisa Martín Rojo when she claims that rationalization is an
instance, a discourse activity (Martín Rojo & Callejo Gallego, 1996). It intends to achieve
presents the utility of something and the result this process produces. Maybe we have to
clariry that, if for linguists is important to address questions in the pragmatic explanation,
part of a frame that is presupposed, and has been agreed upon, and provides the context in
which actions and utterances are to be taken (Goffman, 1961, Encounters: two studies in
rationalization can adopt several forms, amongst them the inhibition, the justification, the
something.
represent an episode, event or scene we form a mental model of them (Van Dijk, 1987;
can assign similar structures to a singular given event. This structure is hierarchically
formed and consists of categories. The categorial analysis recalls the semantic analysis of
sentences. Since the schemas derived from such categories is the basis for some attitudes,
we can assume that the experiential rationalization involves values and sometimes moral
implications. For instance, in a story in which one tells his/her experiences with a ethnic
minority group member, it is important to see how personal experience is used to confirm
and establish general values and norms. The experience is in this case a guarantee of
reliability and truthfulness. And truthfulness is, according to Habermas, a claim of validity
linked to representative speech acts, a claim which says that, with the intentions I show, I
mean exactly what I say. A speaker is truthful "when he/she neither deceives him/herself
nor others in self-expressive speech acts I state nothing about my own internal episodes, I
do no make any claim, I just express something which is subjective" (Habermas, 1989,
communicative act.
a context of studies about racism, Teun van Dijk illustrates how explanations and
justifications are part of the accepted goals in the in-group (Van Dijk, 1987). Although
foreigners are noisy" envolves a complex argumentation. The assertion that their
behaviour is normal is again a move that is intended to eliminate the possible inference
that someone thinks being noisy is deviant in general. Explanations could be interpreted,
rationalization in the right place. As a matter of fact we can add that argumentations used
after making a decision can usually be included in a technical framework. In the same
way, the scientific rationalization don´t need to include values to be conffirmed. They are
created in the terms of a specialized terminology and are constructed with likely premises
has also to do with the social hierarchy that seems to be reproduced in the rethoric
hierarchy, in terms of credibility and reliability (van Dijk, 1990, La noticia como
discurso). Behind rational scientific justifications are several believes that evoke the
positivist paradigm, the monolitic truth and the background of looking for a general and
social improving (that is: scientific reasonings affect to everyone and tend to be presented
as positive for the whole society). Of course, this generalistic vision succeed thanks to a
group exists. That explains that no values are to be included in these kind of
specific domains. The effects of expertise and in general of credibility are crucially
relies on common sense in which opinions are contrasted with truth, because the truth
(facts, theories) offers a normative function in comparison with other fields of the
3) MORAL EVALUATION:
There are arguments destinated to lay the foundations of the structure of the
reality: the arguments that take in consideration singular cases, the arguments based on
the analogy that intend to organize some elements of the thoughts according to schemas
admited in other fields of the reality. The moral evaluations encompass abstractions which
tend to be general: through the example one reaches a conclusion applicable to a large
majority of cases. A process of argumentation is involved in this. The abstraction has also
different levels, from a basic affective level to very complex levels (Hayakawa, s.i.
Actually, we can affirm that the argumentation about values needs a distinction
between abstract values and concret values. The west morality is inspired in general and
abstract conceptions from which come valid rules for everybody. But, nevertheless, they
need circumstances by which one can conceive them in relation to concrete values and
behaviors. Notions like solidarity, discipline or loyalty belong to this category. Moral
The most used resource in moral argumentation is the evaluation. And a common
form of evalution is the comparison. The comparison implies an interaction between two
terms of the comparison. The concept used as pattern can carry weight with the value of
the concepts belonging to the same serie and with wich it is compared. This phenomenon
is to be observd from the perception. The repetition of the compared notions open a new
level of adaptation. It happens the same in the domain of the argumentation in which two
terms already said constitute the basis that influence on new evalutions. The distance
between the two elementes which integrate a comparison has to do with a measure.
analogy, depending on the evaluation and on the valuation of the objects through their
comparison. It is not strange that the quantitative comparison comprises a judgement, and
therefore some values. Some of the comparisons are described as specific semantic moves
that link propositions, for instance, the use of subsequent mitigations or contrasts to
D) MYTHOPOESIS:
The mythopoesis has to do with the role of stories in the field of the
argumentation. Because narrative structures are only an overall schema or form of a story,
they also need an overall content to fill the terminal nodes of the story schema.
Cognitively, stories may be treated as partial expressions of situation models, that is, of
stories is monitored by a strategic application of story schema rules and categories on the
relevance of the story that is to follow and that usually reveals how some general
questions or statements on a specific topic or subject can be illustrated or backed up.
Sometimes such introductory or bridging story fragments also express a clear evaluation,
so as to make the story more effective and therefore interesting (Van Dijk, 1987).
Evaluations, explications and conclusions are the categories or dimensions in which the
opinions or attitudes, and the norms and values that support them, become most clearly
visible.
The goal of some stories has a closed relationship with the models. The model is
about which one can establish a general norm of behaving. The exemplum was
traditionally an instrument to educate in a moral sense. The symbols and allegories uses
exceptional. The morality in the stories is formed by an act and its agent. Around the
person there are lots of phenomena to which he/she gives coherence and meaning. But
there are also values, norms and ideologies. Stories offer topics based on consent, on ideas
socially established and accepted. The moral representation presupposes the existence a
signification and a value, because between the symbol and what it represents, there is
possible without the link of participation. When somebody is used as a symbol, his/her
acts will be more representative and relevant than those of people who is not considered a
symbol. The allegory is the "inversio" (exchange). It consist in pointing out through
representations with allegoric intention and the attribution of allegoric values to texts and
mithological or historical episodes, tales or narrations. Allegory and symbol are opposed.
The symbol reveals a reality but the allegory is an arbitrary and conventional
conceptualization. Besides, this latter is more systematic than the former, and can be
In moralistic and moralizing stories it exist an encarnation of the good and of the
evil. The good is recompensated and the evil is punished. Good and evil are implicitly
defined, according to a serie of social norms and values, that at the same time create
specific expectations and that originate patterned behaviors from our unwritten but ever
present cultural files of "what is good or not", and what can of compensations can one
expect from it. The argumentation, as in previous examples, doesn´t depend on the
argumentations itself (nobody tries to persuade that good is better that evil, or that good
people get more positive compensations than people who are bad), this is already the start
point, this is a field about which it exist a previous and a general consent. The behavior is
FINAL WORDS
As we saw, there are not only important points of contact between theories of
argumentation and theories of legitimation, but they have also in common a lot of tools,
strategies and goals. Sometimes, they superimpose each other and argumentative
mechanisms serves to solidify and reproduce legitimation and legitimacy. Our work had a
general character and many aspects remain out of our analysis. In any case, we hope that
some of the ideas contained in this paper will contribute as platform of reflecting for
Gredos.
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