Dr Steve Oswald has been awarded a 4-year SNF project (2022-2025) under the bilateral Lead Agency Scheme. The project, titled An Argumentative Model of Rephrase: A Pragmatic and Rhetorical Approach (AMoRe, project n° 100019E_202273) investigates the pragmatic and rhetorical features of rephrase, an argumentative strategy through which speakers reformulate their own words or those of others for rhetorical gain, and draws on a robust methodological synergy between computational and experimental approaches.

The research will be conducted by Dr. Steve Oswald (PI), Dr. Jennifer Schumann (post-doc) and Ramy Younis (PhD student). The project's website is available here [url].

Abstract

In natural discourse, speakers many times reformulate what they (or others) have just said, usually for clarification purposes. In argumentative contexts, such reformulations might allow speakers to gain rhetorical advantages: in case the speaker reformulates an argument, what could come off as ‘mere’ paraphrase in fact might surreptitiously
bring forward an additional argument, thereby increasing the argumentative import of the contribution.

This project aims to understand the multidimensional dynamics of rephrase as an argumentative device meant to influence an audience and to fulfil a variety of communicative tasks. This research goal is driven by the overarching question: How do speakers argue with rephrases? We address this problem by uncovering and exploring the  dynamic patterns of rephrase on three dimensions associated with three disciplines. Contemporary philosophy of argumentation (with a speech act theoretic component, e.g., Searle, 1969) helps us identify schemes of rephrase that are analogous to argumentation schemes (see e.g., Walton et al., 2008), along with reframing structures (see e.g., Musi & Aakhus, 2019) which are analogous to known argumentative phenomena such as the straw man fallacy (see e.g., Oswald & Lewi?ski, 2014; Schumann, 2022). Drawing on extant accounts of reformulation and
paraphrase, the pragmatic dimension of the project establishes the specificity and captures the richness of rephrase uses, encompassing locutionary manoeuvres to incorporate rephrase in dialogue, illocutionary intentions associated to rephrase, and their perlocutionary effects such as successful persuasion. Finally, insights from rhetoric provide us with a theoretical framework for capturing patterns of rephrasesensitive rhetorical figures (such as antimetabole or anaphora) and rhetorical relations (such as elaboration or summarization). In so doing, we  simultaneously inquire into how rephrase is linked to the three modes of persuasion: logos, ethos and pathos.