Presentation
Flag-waving: Visual arguments, verbal reconstruction, and speaker intentions
Quadrennial Conference of International Society for the Study of Argumentation, University of Amsterdam
(2018)
Abstract
This study extends previous work in visual argumentation by studying speakers’ own verbal reconstructions of their visual communicative acts. The researcher interviewed 70 persons wearing or carrying American flags at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia in July 2016, to determine whether “speakers” make arguments by wearing or carrying it. For more than 20 years, theorists have debated whether it is meaningful to speak of "visual arguments," whether they can be purely visual, non-verbal communication, and whether and how they can be reconstructed in the form of the conclusion-support structure of an argument. This analysis provides insight into the process of verbally reconstructing visual arguments and counsels caution in attributing argumentative intent to non-verbal communicative acts absent unambiguous manifestation of that intent by the speakers.
Keywords
- multi-modal argument,
- visual argument,
- cpr theory,
- research methods,
- American flag
Disciplines
Publication Date
Summer July 5, 2018
Location
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Citation Information
Brian Larson. "Flag-waving: Visual arguments, verbal reconstruction, and speaker intentions" Quadrennial Conference of International Society for the Study of Argumentation, University of Amsterdam (2018) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/brian-larson/42/