1705136610
1705136611
1705136612
Argumentation is important in activities like negotiation and conflict resolution because argumentation is the primary means that people use to help find ways to resolve their differences. But in some situations, differences cannot be resolved internally, and an outside adjudicator must be employed. Those situations involving outside adjudication are the most clear-cut examples of what we call debate. Sometimes debate occurs without the presence of an outside adjudicator, such as, in legislative debate, but the clearest instance of debate is one in which someone other than the participants themselves adjudicate the disagreement. According to that view, debate can be defined as a process of arguing about claims in situations where an adjudicator is usually called upon to decide the outcome of the dispute. Chapters 15, 16, and 17 discussed four elements of an argument: claims, evidence, links, and exceptions. This chapter will show how those elements are related to one another in what has become known as the “Toulmin Model” of argument.11The model is only a rough approximation of the four elements of argumentation and their relationships to one another. The model may not provide a complete or perfectly accurate description of actual arguments for a variety of reasons. First, the model describes only those elements of an argument related to reasoning. It does not describe other important elements such as expressions of feelings or emotions, unless those are directly related to reasoning. Second, the model describes only the linguistic elements of reasoning. It does not cover significant nonverbal elements of an argument. Despite those shortcomings, the model has proven itself useful for describing some of the key elements of arguments and how they function together.
1705136613
1705136614
The figures shown on the following pages illustrate the Toulmin Model, which will be used to diagram and understand the structure of relatively simple arguments.
1705136615
1705136616
思辨精英：英语辩论-构筑全球视角 [:1705132500]
1705136617
18.1 Simple Arguments
1705136618
1705136619
Toulmin’s Model, in its original form, described only a simple argument consisting of a single claim linked to a single piece of evidence and, perhaps (but not always), accompanied by an exception. The following shows Toulmin’s diagram of a simple argument:
1705136620
1705136621
1705136622
1705136623
1705136624
Toulmin illustrates this diagram using a simple argument claiming that Harry is a British citizen because he was born in Bermuda. Below, his example has been revised to illustrate the claim that He Jing is an American citizen because she was born in Los Angeles, California. Here is a diagram of the structure of that argument:
1705136625
1705136626
1705136627
1705136628
1705136629
In the above illustration, an arguer claims that He Jing is a United States citizen because of the evidence that she was born in the United States. The link between the claim and the evidence is the statement that “People born in the United States generally are United States citizens.” Links are sometimes only implicit in an argument. In this particular case, one could easily envision the argument being made without a stated link: “He Jing is a United States citizen because she was born in Los Angeles.” The link is so generally accepted that the arguer may not even need to include it in the actual argument. Although the link is generally accepted, an arguer might not wish to support this claim in all situations. In other words, the arguer may want to include an exception to the claim. One of those exceptions is spelled out in the diagram above. In that example, the arguer suggests that the claim is a reasonable one unless He Jing’s parents were Chinese citizens. If her parents were Chinese citizens, she might either be a United States citizen or a Chinese citizen depending on choices made by her parents.
1705136630
1705136631
The illustration below presents an example more related to what might be an actual debate about education policy:
1705136632
1705136633
1705136634
1705136635
1705136636
In that example, the claim is that all children under the age of 16 should be required to attend school. The claim is supported by evidence suggesting that people who attend school are less likely to be poorer than people who do not attend school. That evidence might come in the form of a statistic or an empirical study. The evidence does not lead directly to the claim because the argument contains nothing to suggest that requiring children to attend school will have any effect on their actual attendance. Thus, a link is drawn suggesting that laws requiring children to attend school will help ensure their attendance. Such a link probably takes the form of a causal relationship, indicating that certain laws (the cause) lead to more children attending school (effect), as discussed in Chapter 17. That link connects the evidence to the claim in a way that makes the claim plausible. The illustration also contains an exception regarding children who might need to be exempt from attendance because of medical or religious exemptions.
1705136637
1705136638
One subtlety needs to be added to the discussion of the four elements of argument. In many instances, evidence may consist of a previously supported claim. For instance, in the above example regarding education, a debater may have previously constructed a cause and effect argument that had as its claim, “People who attend school are less likely to be poor.” Then, that claim is used in an argument as evidence to support a new claim that “All children under 16 should be required to attend school.”
1705136639
1705136640
Although the above diagrams clearly illustrate how arguments move from evidence to claim via links, very few arguments are ever that simple. For this reason, we have adapted Toulmin’s Model to illustrate a few different argument structures. In addition to the simple argument structure above, other structures include combined and independent arguments. Although they do not even begin to exhaust all potential argument structures, they are some of the more common ones encountered in debate.
1705136641
1705136642
思辨精英：英语辩论-构筑全球视角 [:1705132501]
1705136643
18.2 Combined Arguments
1705136644
1705136645
A combined argument is one in which two or more bits of evidence are joined to support a claim. When a single piece of evidence is insufficient, it must be combined with another piece of evidence to support the claim. The following diagram illustrates the structure of a combined argument:
1705136646
1705136647
1705136648
1705136649
1705136650
The feature that distinguishes a combined argument from a simple one is that more than one piece of evidence is required to infer the claim. Thus, the above diagram uses two pieces of evidence connected to one another with a plus (+) sign to indicate that both pieces of evidence must be added to one another to get to the claim.
1705136651
1705136652
To illustrate a combined argument, we have chosen a claim that “Nations of the world should reduce their dependence on nuclear power.” The following diagram illustrates the argument:
1705136653
1705136654
1705136655
1705136656
1705136657
That particular argument suggests a claim that nations of the world should reduce their dependence on nuclear power. The claim is supported by two pieces of evidence both of which might come in the form of expert testimony. The first piece of evidence is that nuclear power is a dangerous alternative. Any astute debater would quickly notice that the first piece of evidence is not, by itself, sufficient to support the suggestion to reduce the use of nuclear energy, because so far, the argument has not suggested that safer, less dangerous alternatives exist. Thus, a necessary second piece of evidence, perhaps also in the form of testimony, is introduced: alternative sources of energy are less dangerous than nuclear power. Neither of the two pieces of evidence alone supports the claim. The claim is only supported when a debater successfully produces both pieces of evidence.
1705136658
1705136659
Then, to fully support the claim, a link is added to suggest that safer alternatives should replace dangerous ones. The claim results from a combination of two pieces of evidence that are then linked to the claim. In some instances, the debater may not wish to hold to this claim in all circumstances. In those situations, the debater may suggest an exception such as the one presented in the illustration.