图尔明模式及其应用研究

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Chapter One Introduction

As the globalization of the world accelerates, the task of teaching English

(considered to be an international language) becomes more and more commanding.

Although some progress has been made, it seems that we still have a long way to go.

Among the five basic skills of English (listening, speaking, reading, writing and

translating), it is believed by almost the whole teaching staff that teaching English

writing to Chinese students is one of the most compelling tasks of college education. No

one seems sure about the way writing can be taught effectively. And college students are

always complaining about the dullness of English writing.

Prompted by the challenging task, I turn to the abounding writing theories in the

West, hoping that some can be enlightening and the application of these theories in our

country can make new sparks in research of writing in English as well as in Chinese.

As English writing is so big a topic that a thorough exploration of every respect

concerning it is almost impossible, my study will be narrowed down to argument

writing, which is unavoidable, to some extent, in academic writing. Argument has to be

written anywhere in college students’ assignments. In fact, making an argument —

expressing a point of view on a subject and supporting it with evidence —is often the

aim of academic writing. Apart from this, arguments are everywhere: we all use

argumentation on a daily basis, and differences of opinion are how human knowledge

develops, and scholars spend their lives engaged in debate over what may be counted as

“true”, “real” or “right” in their fields.

Stephen Toulmin’s model of argument has already been widely researched on and

applied in English writing in the West. Nevertheless, in our country, this model still

appears to be new to most people’s minds. Little has been done to relate this model to

the concrete process of writing.

When we are learning written argument, it is always helpful to observe how others

argue effectively or ineffectively. The Toulmin’s method, based on the work of the

philosopher Stephen Toulmin, is one way of analyzing a text that we read, with an eye

on responding to that particular argument (as in a writing assignment that asks us to

respond) and, ultimately, toward analyzing and improving the arguments we ourselves

make.

Research on Stephen Toulmin’s Model of Argument and its Application

1.1 Backgrounds

1.1.1 Theoretical Considerations

My study is more than a little prompted by some theoretical issues which concern

the neglect of the use of rhetoric in the study of composing in our country.

“Composing,” in other words, is what goes on in the writer’s head and is then recorded

in writing.

One of the issues is the narrow view of the word “rhetoric” (修辞). As we all know,

the present Chinese term “ 修辞 ” has a comparatively narrower meaning which is

mainly based on the use of language. Chinese rhetoric is language-centered. When

asked about rhetoric, people would probably understand it just as the polishing of

language, totally neglecting other parts of the rhetorical realm, which weigh even more.

Originally coming from debates, just like the Western rhetoric, Chinese rhetoric shifted

its focus from debate to text, particularly to diction and sentence choice. This can be

proved by one of the most well known modern rhetoricians in China, Zhang Gong

(1926), who said that rhetoric was aimed at persuading people or proving arguments

during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. However, since

Han Dynasty, Chinese rhetoric has by and by turned into a study of text. And as

text-centered, Chinese rhetoric has little to do with the process of composing.

Different from Chinese rhetoric, Western rhetoric has a much broader meaning and

therefore it is easier for Western rhetoric to go hand in hand with the study of

composition. The formal study of rhetoric in the West began in Greece in the fifth

century B.C. with the Sophists, followed by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The main line

of Greek rhetoric was extended by Roman rhetoricians, especially by Cicero and

Quintilian.

Classical rhetoric, although concerned with oratory, still influences writing

instruction. For example, by Roman times a five-stage model of the process of

composing a speech (the classical model is a five-stage process, consisting of invention,

arrangement, style, memory, and delivery) had evolved. Three of these stages —

invention, or discovering ideas; arrangement, or organizing ideas; and style, or putting

ideas into words — have been modified into elements in modern models of writing

processes. Memory and delivery, the last two classical stages, dwindled in postclassical

times into mechanical techniques before being revived for serious study in modern

departments of speech.

Scholars traditionally regarded classical rhetoric as a system with the built-in

Chapter One Introduction

assumption that one first finds knowledge and then puts it into words. The strongest

influence on rhetoric has undoubtedly been the Aristotelian model. Aristotle described a

number of topoi, or topics, for discovering ideas and arguments. These topics — ways

of analyzing, evaluating, and extending virtually any subject — constitute a heuristic, or

method of systematic inquiry.

During the period of Renaissance the study of rhetoric was manifested in

techniques for adult practitioners, for example, in “ars dictaminis”, the art of composing

official letters through which church and state business was conducted, and “ars

praedicandi”, the art of preaching.

Later in the western history of rhetoric, composition studies never ended. New

Criticism ultimately had a profound effect on writing instruction, however, because it

approached literary texts as complex structures of meaning. In its view, changing a word

in a poem changed the poem’s meaning — it did not simply select an alternative dress

for an idea that remained unchanged.

Such kind of difference directly results in the neglect of the necessary study of the

mechanism of argument, which is unavoidable for student when they are expected to

compose a proper essay in academic fields, and consequently some problems relating to

the teaching of writing as well as the study of writing.

1.1.2 Problems with Contemporary Teaching of English Writing

1.1.2.1 A Brief Review

Writing is a curiously solitary form of communication, addressed to an absent and

often unknown reader. The writer is often much more conscious of what to

communicate than how to convey the content. And yet writers must engage their

readers’ attention and sustain it over long stretches of the composition. This is a

particular problem for university students as well as the teaching staff.

Most teachers and scholars of written composition would agree that the act of

composing involves many processes and English writing has long been regarded as one

of the most daunting tasks among English teaching staff. Not only do the students

complain of the dullness of writing but also the teachers complain of the difficulty of

the task. It must be admitted that writing process is taken for granted by most people

including some teachers. According to the traditional notion, which dominated the

writing classes for a long time, writing is a silent and solitary activity, the process of

which is mainly linear: planning follows writing and revision follows drafting.

Research on Stephen Toulmin’s Model of Argument and its Application

1.1.2.2 Problems in Teaching Persuasive Writing

Teaching persuasive writing is often regarded as the most difficult challenge a

teacher of composition faces. Textbooks tend to acknowledge this fact by placing the

chapter on persuasion at the end of the rhetoric section. The implications of this

placement are that students need a lot of instruction and practice in writing before

they’re ready to take on persuasion.

Persuasive writing is difficult for students for several reasons. First, the study of

persuasive writing traditionally involves the study of logic and of deductive and

inductive thinking skills. The logical fallacies are usually new to students and are

difficult for students to comprehend. Deductive and inductive thinking, especially when

the use of syllogisms is introduced in deduction, are also difficult. Textbooks, in a

desire to be complete in their presentations, often force students to spend a lot of time

and effort on these critical thinking skills, but the time spent is rarely sufficient for

students to internalize the concepts. Second, persuasive writing is difficult because it

forces students to deal with the notion of counter arguments. Narrative writing tells a

story and, perhaps, draws some conclusion from the events of the story. Expository

writing is thesis-based and doesn’t require substantial attention to counter arguments.

Persuasive writing, however, demands that students discover objections to their point of

view and deal with these objections directly and fairly. Third, persuasion is difficult

because it contains an ethical dimension that, while present in every form of discourse,

is critical in producing an argument that is sound and acceptable to readers. Many

teachers are uncomfortable with the notion of teaching ethics, but a thorough treatment

of persuasive writing demands that ethical issues related to honesty be discussed with

students. Finally, persuasive writing is difficult because it requires a distinct voice in

order to be successful. Students often have trouble with the idea that the “speaker” of

their essay is a fictional character, with a personality, set of attitudes, and complex of

values that must somehow be made to “come through” to readers.

There is, of course, much more to be said about the problem in teaching persuasive

writing, especially in argumentation. Any good composition teacher should be able to

tell students what they need to know about logic both as a tool of persuasion and as a

way of critiquing texts as well as how to produce logical essays.

More or less, all the problems mentioned above, whatever those the teachers face

or whatever those students complain about, can be found in connection with the

common problems that are prevalent in the classroom.

First of all, teachers tend to teach writing as an inactive action. Students are never

taught to bear their audience in their minds. And the common procedure of a

Chapter One Introduction

composition class is like the following: the teacher gives the students the writing topic

and the students write their compositions and then hand them in, waiting for the graded

papers back, usually with some grammatical mistakes underlined. That is all. In this

case, little by little, students begin to form a false conception about writing.

1.2 The General Purpose of the Study

As the volume of scholarly citation in foreign scholars’ works suggests, both the

strengths and weaknesses of Toulmin’s method, at least as it relates to teaching

composition and communication, are well known. Overlooked, however, has been how

useful Toulmin argumentation can be as a tool for introducing composing process and

for organizing writing — especially with beginning students who want to learn to write

in a foreign language. I take pretty much interest in Stephen Toulmin’s model that

hasn’t been appreciated in the study of writing in our country so far and I believe that

approaching composition from this perspective can give both student writers and

teachers new insights into the composing process —insights discovered when the

writing process is perceived with the help of this model.

Research on Stephen Toulmin’s Model of Argument and its Application

Chapter Two Stephen Toulmin’s Model of Argument

Analyzed

2.1 Brief Introduction

2.1.1 Defining Argument

The logician’s definition of argument usually found in logic textbooks originally

sprang out of Aristotle’s theory of the syllogism. There is, however, another, much

broader and more heterogeneous conception of argument

—

reasoning.Aristotle

frequently uses “reasoning” where we would use “argument”, and vice versa. For

example, he writes about different kinds of reasoning where, it would be, strictly

speaking, more appropriate to talk about different kinds of argument. But these apparent

differences can be explained, given the presumption that, since reasoning occurs in

argument, different kinds of argument context will result (derivatively) in different

kinds of reasoning. Aristotle once defined reasoning (syllogismos) as an argument

(logos) in which, certain things being laid down, something other than these necessarily

comes about through them.

In his Dictionary of Philosophy, Angeles gives a two-part definition of argument.

argument (Latin, arguere, “to make clear”):

1. The reasons (proof, evidence) offered in support or denial of something.

2. In logic, a series of statements called premises logically related to a further

statement called the conclusion (op. cit., p. 18).

Part 2 of this definition falls back onto part 1, for presumably the premises are the

“reasons (proof, evidence) offered in support or denial of the conclusion”.Offering a

helpful definition of argument then requires an elucidation of what are reasons (proof,

evidence) offered in support (or denial) of something.

Definition 1 above is the standard sort of definition of “argument” given in logic

textbooks. But there are variants of it. Irving Copi requires only claims “which are

regarded as providing support,” rather than genuine reasons.

An argument, in the logician’s sense, is any group of propositions of which one is

claimed to follow from the others, which are regarded as providing support or grounds

for the truth of that one. Of course, the word “argument” is often used in other senses,

but in logic it has the sense just explained (ibid., p. 6).

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ChapterOneIntroduction1ChapterOneIntroductionAstheglobalizationoftheworldaccelerates,thetaskofteachingEnglish(consideredtobeaninternationallanguage)becomesmoreandmorecommanding.Althoughsomeprogresshasbeenmade,itseemsthatwestillhavealongwaytogo.AmongthefivebasicskillsofEnglish(listening,speaking,read...

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