Book Review Ekkehard Eggs (HG.) (2002). Topoï, Discours, Arguments. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. In his book Topoï, discours, arguments (published in French), Ekkehard Eggs presents five papers dealing with the notion of topoï within an argumentative frame. All papers have a theoretical dimension which reflects the vivid and continuous theorizing activity focused on topoï since Aristotle. The book opens with a paper by Ruth Amossy, whose work about commonplaces1 is inspired by literary studies as well as conversation and discourse analysis. Amossy attempts to restore the attention for the many doxastic elements of discourse by showing the communicative and argumentative function they fulfil. She claims that such elements are key contributors to the efficient management of face-to-face interaction or of the persuasion process by articulating the logos component to the way a community thinks of/looks at a particular question, and by relating it to the pathos component (the way the community feels about it). Hence the doxastic elements of discourse should not be systematically discarded as trivial; on the contrary, their importance as a sine qua non condition of verbal communication should be recognized. Amossy proposes to integrate into a single cohesive frame topoï koinoï (rhetorical topoï, which constitute argumentative ‘moulds’ that shape the discourse; as ‘empty’ forms, they do not pertain to doxa); pragmatic topoï, i.e. generally accepted ideas which underlie the sequencing of argumentative utterances and act as doxastic warrants of the micro-structuration of a discourse; commonplaces (Aristotle’s specific topoï, which have the same sequencing function as the pragmatic topoï, but also fulfil a persuasive function owing to the specific content they convey); and, finally, ‘idées reçues’ (‘clichés’), which are very close to commonplaces, with an extra emphasis on the coercive dimension of shared opinions. In her paper, Sylvie Bruxelles convincingly combines non-contextual semantics (and specifically, the notion of ‘(de)-realizing morpheme’ [‘morpheme (dé)-réalisant’], which appeals to the notion of topoï in Ducrot’s ‘Argumentation dans la langue’ perspective) on the one hand, and ethno-methodological interactionism on the other hand, in order to analyse talk in interaction. Bruxelles jointly uses descriptive categories from both theoretical perspectives in order to analyse face-to-face interactions between notaries and their clients during a divorce litigation. She succeeds in showing that such a combination allows to account for the way in which meaning is constructed through the discursive sequencing of sentences, while neglecting none of the linguistic, cognitive, actional, relational or Argumentation 18: 479–482, 2004.

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social dimensions of face-to-face interaction dynamics. In particular, she shows that mentioning the close date of occurrence of an event fulfils a ‘realizing’ function (it actualizes and reinforces the topoï which are associated with the event); such a device is thus used by speakers in order to manage discussion themes, interpersonal relationships, and emotions (that is, crucial elements for the analysis of talk in interaction). When analysing the effects of dating on topoï activation – or when studying the derealizing morpheme ‘working’ (as in ‘working document’) or ‘formal’ (associated with ‘question’), Bruxelles supports her interpretation with an analysis of the argumentative semantics of an utterance which takes into account the actions the participants are engaged in at the local and global levels. Ekkehard Eggs’s and Marc Dominicy’s papers both have a rather philological and historical orientation. Dominicy tackles the issues related to the application of a topical approach to epidictic discourse (either of praise or of blame). He criticizes his 1995–1996 proposition of giving epidictic topoï a logical form, and suggests that such an approach meets insuperable obstacles, both from a logical point of view and with regard to its descriptive adequacy. In order to explain the cognitive dimension of amplification as well as its rhetorical efficiency, Dominicy shows that amplification relies on the evocation of models of ‘impulsive virtue’. He refers to neurosciences and, specifically, to studies dealing with the neuro-cognitive processes underlying decision-making. Damasio’s works show that decision-making is closely linked to one’s positive or negative emotions towards a given situation. Dominicy then makes the assumption that ‘from an evolutionary point of view, epidictic rhetoric is rooted in the physiological constraints which command our decision making, and in the rather diffuse consciousness we may have of such constraints’ (p. 62). Such a perspective enables one to account for the cognitive and textual processes used in praise or blame discourse. Because they aim at prompting the audience to action by creating a feeling of empathy, they make use of ‘models’ or ‘anti-models’ that can feel, and hence arouse, emotions, rather than invoke ‘criterions’ ‘deprived of body, and hence of emotion, which would remain the prey of a cold intellectual deliberation without ever deciding to act’ (p. 62). Eggs’s paper first discusses some definitions of topoi commonly used in contemporary works on argumentation. Referring to Aristotle’s Analytics and Topics, he shows that such definitions misunderstand the Aristotelian thinking. Eggs then defines common topoï and specific topoï, the former as inference schemes (they are ‘rational logical warrants that legitimize the fact of inferring a conclusion from a specific set of premises,’ p. 68), the latter as the generic premises of an argument or syllogism (all the specific topoï put together constitute what Eggs calls the ‘topical knowledge’ of a community). Eggs then mentions the many attempts to reduce dialectical topics to syllogistics (in particular by Sherwood); he shows that the failure

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of such attempts caused the abandon, not of syllogistics, but of dialectical topics – because of the incapacity of the latter to offer the sense of security of an area where one can conclude ‘with necessity.’ Eggs is in favour of the reconstruction of a dialectical topics in order to analyse the inferential and linguistic structures proper to the fuzzy, flexible logics which underlie any human communication. He proposes to classify specific topoï, distinguishing topoï which refer to states of things (), from topoï relying on typification processes (), or on probabilities (). A specific topos may or may not be compatible with a specific inference scheme (e.g., relative probabilities often appear in a fortiori arguments). Finally, he highlights a particular linguistic phenomenon: the existence of what he calls ‘sequential topics,’ which imply various argumentative steps, and have a text structuring function. The last paper is by Christian Plantin, who underlines the ever-evolving, highly dispersed character of topoï-related work. He uses this concept in order to seize the specificity of argumentative sequencing. Through the description of ad tranquilitatem or ad quietem strategies – which invite the addressee to respect the status quo and amount to refusing to enter the debate – Plantin shows the existence of interactional, non-argumentative, conditions that determine the emergence of a highly argumentative topical discourse. The analysis of a second example, which according to Plantin is a case of topoï-deprived argumentation, shows how the mere absence of interactional ratification may lead a speaker to withdraw the argument he initially put forward. Plantin nuances the usual distinction between an essentially aesthetic rhetoric of tropes, and a mainly argumentative rhetoric of topoï. He shows that the same type of relationships may be involved in rhetorical figures and in arguments (in the metonymy of effect as well as in arguing from the consequences, for instance). He concludes that ‘the mechanisms which govern the sequencing of argumentative utterances do not differ from the mechanisms of the designation process,’ the topoï underlying argumentative sequencing sometimes being a matter of mere ‘vicinity’ (p. 99). Plantin then turns to the notion of ‘topical system’ as expressing a ‘popular ontology oscillating between cognitive and linguistic concerns,’ and claims that such a system may be of great help when looking for arguments. Some topics have a general range, some are more specific; Plantin mentions the topical system of emotions, which defines various questions aiming at determining the emotional tone of a discourse (p. 101). Plantin sees topoï as defining specific argument schemes, and illustrates this point with the a fortiori topos, which defines in turn the a fortiori argument, or with the ‘to the contrary’ topos, which structures the a contrario argument. Such topoï pre-form argument schemes as well as standard refutations that may be addressed. Plantin concludes by suggesting,

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through the example of the argument of sacrifice, that topoï may also consist in very general argumentative discourses, associated by derivation and rephrasing operations to more specific argumentative discourses. Egg’s volume proposes a complex but fascinating reflection on topoï, through an enlightening dialogue between the antique conception of topoï and their renewed modern definitions, the result being the refusal to construct new theoretical or analytical proposals based on a misunderstood Aristotelian heritage.

NOTE 1

Amossy, R.: 1991, Les idées reçues. Sémiologie du stéréotype, Nathan, Paris; Amossy, R. and A. Herschberg-Pierrot: 1997, Stéréotypes et clichés. Langue, discours, société, Nathan, Paris.

MARIANNE DOURY C.N.R.S. Laboratoire ‘Communication et Politique’ France E-mail: [email protected]

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