Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Felt Realities? Contradictory Argumentation in Verbal Political Discourse in Switzerland

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Contradiction Studies – Exploring the Field

Part of the book series: Contradiction Studies ((COSTU))

  • 222 Accesses

Abstract

Brexit, the rise of right-wing populist parties in European countries and the US presidential elections have raised a lot of questions: The discussion on populism and its relation with emotions and language has intensified. Why is this populist argumentation so successful?

In this article, I will present two examples of contradictory argumentation in verbal political discourse in Switzerland: Contradictions within argument structures and contradicting frames in interaction. The data was collected in a study, where discussions were led about Switzerland and its relationship with Europe. This article focuses on argumentative topoi and cognitive frames linked together as a complex argumentative pattern, using Josef Klein’s scheme of basic pattern of topoi in political argumentation. The analysis shows that contradictions in interaction can be located on different levels; on semantic as well as interactional ones. And taking a closer look, some of these contradictions are not as contradicting anymore when contextualized within an argumentative structure. Topoi, frames, sequential and syntactical means interact to support political argumentation and can give some indications how to explain contradiction in political argumentation and understand phenomena called felt realities. Emotions play a crucial role in this structure as well: They are vital in politics and should be taken into serious account with regard to policy advice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    I am indebted to Marcel Eggler who commented on earlier versions of this paper. Of course, all remaining shortcomings are my own. This paper was written in 2017 and refers to the political situation then.

  2. 2.

    Original term: Topische Basisstruktur politischer Argumentation.

  3. 3.

    Original term: Komplexes topisches Muster.

  4. 4.

    There are three situations that lead to a referendum in Switzerland: 1. The popular initiative, if an issue is signed by 100.000 voters; 2. the optional referendum, that allows a vote on a bill that was approved by the Federal Assembly; and 3. the mandatory referendum, when constitutional amendments are approved by the parliament or when Switzerland wants to become a member of specific international organisations (see Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft 2021a).

  5. 5.

    Agreements on free movement of persons, technical obstacles to trade, public procurement market, agriculture, research, civil aviation and overland transport (see Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft 2021b).

  6. 6.

    See (Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft 2021c) for an overview of the European political votes in Switzerland.

  7. 7.

    It would go too far to describe the further negotiations of the initiative in this paper. In short: Mainly because of the Brexit vote in Great Britain in spring 2016, the EU did not enter into negotiations with Switzerland concerning immigration issues. As the text of the popular initiative demands an implementation within three years, the Swiss parliament had to implement it without negotiations with the EU. In February 2017, the two chambers of the parliament voted for a very light implementation of the initiative in order not to endanger the bilateral agreements. Until now there is still no reaction from Brussels, but the SVP has handed in a new initiative as they do not see that the government followed “the people’s will.” For an up-to-date overview of Switzerland’s European Policy see (Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft 2021d).

  8. 8.

    The project was carried out by GENTINETTA*SCHOLTEN Wirtschaft Politik Gesellschaft GmbH Zürich (today: Sensor Advice GmbH), who advises companies, associations, authorities and persons concerning socio-political issues, economic policies and political communication. The portfolio contains the conduct of discourse analyses and the development of discourse strategies (see Sensor Advice n.dat.). In 2015, the author of this paper was responsible for the analysis as staff of the Linguistic Department of the University of Applied Sciences Zürich.

  9. 9.

    Thirteen medium-sized agglomeration cities were chosen, where the gap between the yes-vote to the initiative against mass immigration and the preceding yes-votes to the bilateral agreements was significant. In other words, in these cities the change of opinion (from yes to the Bilaterals to no to immigration) was larger than elsewhere.

  10. 10.

    The forth national language (Rhaeto-Romanic) was neglected due to its minority status.

  11. 11.

    Understood as campaigning, a constant campaign on a specific issue (see Scholten 2014).

  12. 12.

    Therefore, see for example the (older) publication by Spranz-Fogasy (1986).

  13. 13.

    The term topos has a long history, based on the antique, Aristotelian notion. The definition by Aristotle is broad and rather vague. Aristotelian rhetoric lists hundreds of topics on different levels of generality (e.g. Ueding and Steinbrink 2011, 239). In current linguistic discourse analytical studies, topoi are defined in a more concrete, context-sensitive way, as by Wengeler (e.g. 2003, 2007; for an overview of the use of the term topos in different academic fields see also Wengeler 2003, 177–261 and Kienpointner 2017). Furthermore, there are some difficulties concerning the translation of the term topos from German to English, as I am mainly referring to German texts. Topos, topic or argumentation schemes are used in English; the term argumentation scheme is used especially in modern argumentation theory in the context of argument mining (see Walton and Macagno 2009, 2015). I will stick very closely to Klein’s terms, as in this paper I am applying his model to my data.

  14. 14.

    For the difference between schemata and patterns see Klein 2016, 79: Schemata can be more or less stable, a pattern is a scheme with a limited number of alternatives.

  15. 15.

    Fakultative Kategorienbelegung (Klein 2014, 311; 2016, 88).

  16. 16.

    Kategorienüberlagerung (Klein 2016, 89); in the example in table1 the categories consequence and evaluation overlap, as the consequence topos points out a negative consequence.

  17. 17.

    Klein integrates this step (graphically) more tightly into his model (2016, 95). The step demand for measures/action is the conclusion of the argumentation, not a topos. Therefore, I do not integrate it into Table 1.

  18. 18.

    This is the first part of a longer extract. For this paper only the first part is analysed; the data suffices to show the relevant aspects, as the speaker is repeating himself later.

  19. 19.

    The extract shows the original Swiss German transcription with interlinear English translation in italics [translation, FT], transcribed according to the GAT2 guidelines, accordingly, capitalized syllables represent word stress (Selting et al. 2011). One speaker (HLT_D7_11Fm) is talking. Lines 296–298 are omitted: the speaker talks about the trade associations and their responsibility.

  20. 20.

    The speaker interrupts his sentence here (marked with “–“, according to GAT2) and restarts his utterance in line 291 saying, that he agrees that the biliateral agreements are “a good thing.”

  21. 21.

    The adverb emol (German einmal/mal: literal translation once) is used in combination with the verbs (fahren, fliegen, gehen) as a discourse marker. As there is no equivalent discourse marker in English, it is marked as [DM] in the interlinear translation. Its pragmatic function on the one hand is to create intersubjectivity (see Tissot 2015) and direct the other participants towards the own argumentation (comparable with guck mal, described in Günthner 2017). As an illocutionary indicator on the other hand, it refers to the illocution of TRYING (unsuccessfully, here). A corresponding translation would be try to take a train/a plane/rent a flat.

  22. 22.

    Using an Aristotelian argument from knowledge.

  23. 23.

    More about argumentation in conversation can be found in Deppermann 2003 and Spranz-Fogasy 2002, 2003. See also conversation analytic concepts like repair and preferred/dispreferred actions, repair (Schegloff et al. 1977) and affiliation/disaffiliation, alignment/disalignment (Lee and Tanaka 2016, Stivers 2008).

  24. 24.

    In the project, we did not analyse these different techniques of contradicting/disagreement (see e.g. Spranz-Fogasy 1986), but marked these sentences just on a broad level as disagreement. See also Schwarze 2007, 8, who suggests to use disagreement markers as starting point to reconstruct argumentation in interaction.

  25. 25.

    As mentioned before, argumentation in interaction takes place in different steps that can be realised in very long sequences.

  26. 26.

    Some turn constructional units (TCUs) are skipped to keep the sequence shorter; they are not important to understand the illustrated phenomena.

References

  • Baldauf, Christa. 1997. Metapher und Kognition: Grundlagen einer neuen Theorie der Alltagsmetapher, Sprache in der Gesellschaft. Bern: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bischof, Karin. 2015. Global Player EU? Eine ideologiekritische Metaphernanalyse. Edition Politik. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daum, Matthias. 2014. “Das Geschwätz vom Schweizer Dichte-Stress.” Zeit Online. https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2014-02/schweiz-volksentscheid-dichtestress. Accessed 4 July 2017.

  • Deppermann, Arnulf. 2003. “Desiderata einer gesprächsanalytischen Argumentationsforschung.” In Argumentieren in Gesprächen. Gesprächsanalytische Studien, ed. Arnulf Deppermann and Martin Hartung, 10–26. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Günthner, Susanne. 2006. “Grammatische Analysen der kommunikativen Praxis – ’Dichte Konstruktionen’ in der Interaktion.” In Grammatik und Interaktion. Untersuchungen zum Zusammenhang von grammatischen Strukturen und Gesprächsprozessen, edited by Arnulf Deppermann, Reinhard Fiehler and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy. Radolfzell: Verlag für Gesprächsforschung.

    Google Scholar 

  • Günthner, Susanne. 2017. “Diskursmarker in der Interaktion. Formen und Funktionen univerbierter guck mal- und weißt du-Konstruktionen.” In Diskursmarker im Deutschen. Reflexionen und Analysen, edited by Hardarik Blühdorn, Arnulf Deppermann, Henrike Helmer and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy, 103–130. Göttingen: Verlag für Gesprächsforschung. http://verlag-gespraechsforschung.de/2017/bluehdorn.html.

  • Hutchby, Ian, and Robin Wooffitt. 1998. Conversation Analysis. Principles, Practices and Applications. Cambridge, Oxford, and Malden MA: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Interpharma. 2017. “Gute Gründe für eine konstruktive Europapolitik.” In Basisdokumentation, edited by GENTINETTA*SCHOLTEN Wirtschaft Politik Gesellschaft GmbH, Zurich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kienpointner, Manfred. 2017. “Topoi.” In Handbuch Sprache in Politik und Gesellschaft, edited by Kersten Sven Roth, Martin Wengeler and Alexander Ziem, 187–211. Berlin: De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Josef. 2000. “Komplexe topische Muster: Vom Einzeltopos zur diskurstyp-spezifischen Topos-Konfiguration.” In Topik und Rhetorik. Ein interdisziplinäres Symposium, edited by Thomas Schirren and Gerd Ueding, 623–650. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Josef. 2014. “Topik und Frametheorie als argumentations- und begriffsgeschichtliche Instrumente, dargestellt am Kolonialdiskurs.” In Grundlagen der Politolinguistik. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, edited by Josef Klein, 309–324. Berlin: Frank & Timme.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Josef. 2016. “Politische Argumentation – die topische Basisstruktur.” In Von Gandhi und al-Qaida bis Schröder und Merkel. Politolinguistische Analysen, Expertisen und Kritik, edited by Josef Klein, 77–99. Berlin: Frank & Timme.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Seung-Hee., and Hiroko Tanaka. 2016. Editorial. “Affiliation and alignment in responding actions.” Journal of Pragmatics 100:1–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Müller, Jan-Werner. 2016. Was ist Populismus? Ein Essay. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ortmann, Günther. 1992. “Macht, Spiel, Konsens.” In Mikropolitik. Rationalität, Macht und Spiele in Organisationen, edited by Willi Küpper and Günther Ortmann, 13–26. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schegloff, Eleonor, Gail Jefferson, and Harvey Sacks. 1977. “The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation”. Language 53(2): 361–382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scholten, Heike. 2014. “Policy Campaigning – Politikvermittlung in der Referendumsdemokratie.” In Abstimmungskampagnen: Politikvermittlung in der Referendumsdemokratie, edited by Heike Scholten and Klaus Kamps, 227–260. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Scholten, Heike, Katja Gentinetta, Fabienne Tissot, and Sandra Hanselmann. 2015. Dialog über die Schweiz und Europa. Zürich: GENTINETTA*SCHOLTEN. Interner Schlussbericht zuhanden der Kundschaft.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwarze, Cordula. 2007. “Der Topos der Zeit als argumentative Ressource in Konfliktgesprächen [41 Absätze].” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (8)1: Art. 16. https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/206/455. Accessed 4 July 2017.

  • Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft. 2021a. “Direkte Demokratie.” https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/de/home/politik-geschichte/politisches-system/direkte-demokratie.html. Accessed 27 August 2021.

  • Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft. 2021b. “Überblick bilaterale Abkommen.” https://www.eda.admin.ch/europa/de/home/bilaterale-abkommen/ueberblick.html. Accessed 27 August 2021.

  • Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft. 2021c. “Abstimmung.” https://www.eda.admin.ch/europa/de/home/europapolitik/abstimmungen. Accessed 2 June 2017.

  • Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft. 2021d. https://www.eda.admin.ch/europa/en/home.html. Accessed 27 August 2021.

  • Schwitalla, Johannes. 2012. Gesprochenes Deutsch. Eine Einführung. 4. neu bearbeitete und erweiterte Auflage. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Selting, Margret. 2004. “Listen: Sequenzielle und prosodische Struktur einer kommunikativen Praktik – eine Untersuchung im Rahmen der Interaktionalen Linguistik.” Zeitschrift Für Sprachwissenschaft 23:1–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Selting, Margret. 2007. “Lists as embedded structures and the prosody of list construction as an interactional resource.” Journal of Pragmatics 39(3):483–526.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Selting, Margret, Peter Auer, Dagmar Barth-Weingarten, Bergmann Jörg, Bergmann Pia, Karin Birkner, Elisabeth Couper-Kuhlen, Arnulf Deppermann, Pierre Gilles, Susanne Günthner, Martin Hartung, Frederike Kern, Christine Mertzlufft, Christian Meyer, Miriam Morek, Frank Oberzaucher, Jörg Peters, Uta M. Quasthoff, Wilfried Schütte, anja Stukenbrock, and Susanne Uhmann. 2011. “A system for transcribing talk-in-interaction: GAT 2. Translated and adapted for English by Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen and Dagmar Barth-Weingarten.” Gesprächsforschung – Online-Zeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion 12:1–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sensor Advice. n.dat. http://www.sensoradvice.ch https://issuu.com/interpharma/docs/170109_interpharma_basicbook_de. Accessed 27 August 2021.

  • Simpson, J.A., and E.S.C. Weiner. 1989. The Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. III. 2nd edition. Oxford: Claredon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spitzmüller, Jürgen, and Ingo H. Warnke. 2011. Diskurslinguistik. Eine Einführung in Theorien und Methoden der transtextuellen Sprachanalyse, De Gruyter Studium. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spranz-Fogasy, Thomas. 1986. ‘widersprechen.’ Zu Form und Funktion eines Aktivitätstyps in Schlichtungsgesprächen. Eine gesprächsanalytische Untersuchung, Forschungberichte des Instituts für deutsche Sprache Mannheim. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spranz-Fogasy, Thomas. 2002. “Interaktionsorganisation als (meta-)kommunikative Ressource des Argumentierens.” In Beiträge zu Metakommunikation und Reformulierung in argumentativen Texten, edited by Sabine Bastian and Françoise Hammer, 11–25. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spranz-Fogasy, Thomas. 2003. “Alles Argumentieren, oder was? Zur Konstitution von Argumentation im Gespräch.” In Argumentieren im Gespräch. Gesprächsanalytische Studien, edited by Arnulf Deppermann and Martin Hartung, 27–39. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stivers, Tanya. 2008. “Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation During Storytelling: When Nodding Is a Token of Affiliation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41(1):31–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tages-Anzeiger. 2016. http://www.gentinettascholten.ch/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Tagesanzeiger-vom-19.11.2016-PDF.pdf. Accessed 27 August 2021.

  • Tissot, Fabienne. 2015. Gemeinsamkeit schaffen in der Interaktion: Diskursmarker und Lautelemente in zürichdeutschen Erzählsequenzen. Sprache in Kommunikation und Medien, edited by Ulla Kleinberger, Martin Luginbühl and Franc Wagner. Bern: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ueding, Gerd, and Bernd Steinbrink. 2011. Grundriß der Rhetorik. 5. aktualisierte Auflage ed. Vol. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walton, Douglas, and Fabrizio Macagno. 2009. “Enthymemes, argumentation schemes and topics.” Logique Et Analyse, Nouvelle Série 52(205):39–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walton, Douglas, and Fabrizio Macagno. 2015. “A classification system for argumentation schemes.” Argument and Computation 6(3):19–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warnke, Ingo H., and Jürgen. Spitzmüller, eds. 2008a. Methoden der Diskurslinguistik. Sprachwissenschaftliche Zugänge zur transtextuellen Ebene. Linguistik – Impulse & Tendenzen. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warnke, Ingo H., and Jürgen Spitzmüller. 2008b. “Methoden und Methodologie der Diskurslinguistik – Grundlagen und Verfahren einer Sprachwissenschaft jenseits textueller Grenzen.” In Methoden der Diskurslinguistik. Sprachwissenschaftliche Zugänge zur transtextuellen Ebene, edited by Ingo H. Warnke and Jürgen Spitzmüller, 3–54. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wengeler, Martin. 2003. Topos und Diskurs. Begründung einer argumentationsanalytischen Methode und ihre Anwendung auf den Migrationsdiskurs (1960–1985). Reihe Germanistische Linguistik. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wengeler, Martin. 2007. “Topos und Diskurs – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der topologischen Analyse gesellschaftlicher Debatten.” In Diskurslinguistik nach Foucault. Theorien und Gegenstände, edited by Ingo H. Warnke, 165–186. Berlin: De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziem, Alexander. 2008. “Frame-Semantik und Diskursanalyse – Skizze einer kognitionswissenschaftlich inspirierten Methode zur Analyse gesellschaftlichen Wissens.” In Methoden der Diskurslinguistik. Sprachwissenschaftliche Zugänge zur transtextuellen Ebene, edited by Ingo H. Warnke and Jürgen Spitzmüller, 89–116. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Berlin, Deutschland

    Fabienne Tissot

Authors
  1. Fabienne Tissot
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabienne Tissot .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Gisela Febel

  2. Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Kerstin Knopf

  3. Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Martin Nonhoff

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Tissot, F. (2023). Felt Realities? Contradictory Argumentation in Verbal Political Discourse in Switzerland. In: Febel, G., Knopf, K., Nonhoff, M. (eds) Contradiction Studies – Exploring the Field. Contradiction Studies. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37784-7_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37784-7_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-658-37783-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-658-37784-7

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation