Telling Examples. Strategic manoeuvring in plenary debates in the European Parliament
Members of Parliament may make use of argumentation from examples to justify policies and legislation. In this contribution I concentrate on how argumentation from example may be used to manoeuvre strategically in plenary legislative debates in the European parliament. As a framework for the analysis of the strategic use of examples in the institutional setting of the European parliament, I shall make use of van Eemeren and Houtlosser’s (1999, 2002) concept of strategic manoeuvring.
Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative discourse.
The “argumentative predicament” is that in every argumentative move strategic manoeuvring has to take place in order to keep the balance between aiming for effectiveness and maintaining reasonableness. In order to do justice to the strategic manoeuvring, next to dialectical insights about maintaining reasonableness also rhetorical insights about achieving effectiveness need to be incorporated in the theorizing. In strategic manoeuvring three aspects can be analytically distinguished: selection from the available “topical potential”, adaptation to “audience demand” and utilizing “presentational devices”. More encompassing argumentative strategies involve coordinated strategic manoeuvring with regard to these three aspects in a succession of argumentative moves. Strategic manoeuvring derails when a rule for critical discussion is violated. As is illustrated in an extension of the reconstruction of an argumentative text provided in the previous chapter, including an account of the strategic manoeuvring results in a richer and more accurate analysis which can be better accounted for and leads to a more pertinent evaluation.
Percussion marks on bone surfaces as a new diagnostic of hominid behaviour
Since stone tool cut marks and carnivore tooth marks were first described systematically on Plio-Pleistocene archaeological bone1,2, bone surface modification has played a prominent role in interpreting early archaeological site formation and hominid behaviour3–15. Here we introduce a new class of bone surface modification, which we call percussion marks. Percussion marks were produced during experimental breakage of marrow bones, and occur as pits or grooves impressed on a bone's surface by natural protrusions on the granitic hammerstone and anvil used. Although percussion marks can superficially mimic carnivore tooth marks, they nonetheless are closely associated with hammerstone impact notches and show consistent micromorphological features which distinguish them from tooth marks and other classes of bone surface modification. Given indications of prehistoric hammer-stone breakage of marrow bones1,7, an awareness of percussion marks is critical for accurately identifying the biological agents of bone modification at archaeological sites and provides a new diagnostic of carcass processing by hominids.