Argumentation (2008) 22:507519 DOI 10.

1007/s10503-008-9102-2

Argumentation Theorists Argue that an Ad is an Argument

M. Louise Ripley

Published online: 5 June 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract Using print ads and recognizing the role of visual images in argument (Groarke) and the presence of arguments in ads (Slade), this paper argues that the work of argumentation theorists from Aristotle to van Eemeren and Grootendorst can be used to support the thesis that ads are arguments. I cite as evidence denitions, demarcations, delineations, and descriptions of argument put forth by leading scholars in the eld of argumentation. This includes Aristotle, Informal Logic, Toulmin (Claim, Data, Warrant, Backing, Qualier, Rebuttal), Johnson and Blair (argument as reasons or evidence as grounds or support for an opinion), Gilbert (Multi-Modal Argumentation), and van Eemeren and Grootendorst (argumentation as a social activity and pragma-dialectics). I show how, although just tting a particular advertisement to someones denition does not mean that all ads are arguments, nevertheless, the fact that we can nd in an ad all these elements from this variety of scholars over time, leaves us reasonably secure in stating that an ad is indeed an argument. Since my argument would be the same for practically any ad, I am using only one ad. I do, however, use the kind of ad that is least likely to seem to be an argument: an ad with few words, an ad which is mostly visual. If I can show how even an almost entirely visual ad can be analyzed as an argument using the terms of all these scholars of argumentation, I will maintain that most ads could be analyzed in the same way. Keywords Advertising Argumentation Blair van Eemeren Gilbert Grootendorst Johnson Multi-modal-argumentation Pragma-dialectics Toulmin

M. L. Ripley (&) York University, 282 Atkinson College, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M3J 1P3 e-mail: lripley@yorku.ca

123

508

M. L. Ripley

1 Introduction Growing up in a family that subscribed to The New Yorker at a time when a centerfold advertisement in that magazine cost 10 times what my father earned in a year, it is perhaps not surprising that I became fascinated with advertising. I went on to earn a PhD in Marketing and study advertisements as a career. What did surprise me, upon having the good fortune while teaching business within a liberal arts college to fall in among a group of philosophers, was to discover that there is disagreement among philosophers as to whether or not an advertisement can be considered an argument. Not only had I always assumed that an advertisement is an argument, but from my youngest days, I had always imagined an advertisement as a kind of two-way dialogue. This dialogue I saw taking place between the producer of the product who has reasons why the reader should purchase it and the reader of the ad who sees no reason to do so. I since have discovered specic terms for such concepts and while I will at the end of my paper entertain the challenging possibility that an ad might be a dialectic argument, the main contention of my paper is that an ad is indeed an argument. I will support my claim by briey examining one advertisement using the terminology and principles of a number of well-known theorists in the eld of argumentation: Aristotle and Formal Logic, some tools from Informal Logic, Toulmin, Johnson and Blair, Gilbert, and van Eemeren and Grootendorst. I will show that, in each case, the ad ts the scholars denition of an argument and that we are able to analyze the ad using the scholars work as if the ad were indeed an argument. To narrow the scope of the paper, I refer only to print ads. For the purpose of this paper, I accept the proposition that a satisfactory attempt to understand argument must recognize the pervasive role that visual images play in everyday persuasion, argument and debate (Groarke 2005, pp. 186187). I also accept the proposition (Slade 2002, p. 174) that we must at least assume that ads contain arguments. I use the term ad and advertisement interchangeably.

2 The Ad for my Argument For this paper, I have chosen one ad, for Artistic Tile of New York City, published in the Sunday New York Times Magazine in March 2006. The full-page colour ad shows a sultry woman from the hips up, wearing only large gold hoop earrings and a bustier made of small gold mirrored tiles. She stands, sensuously curved, in front of a deep-red velvet curtain with a light shining on her, her arms upraised, her breasts overowing the top of the bustier. The woman lls twothirds of the page. The small white copy to the right of her bustier says, Check out our overowing selection of alluring styles. On the bottom of the page is printed the name of the company and the phrase, You Wont Believe Our Body of Work. Below that is listed the companys locations, a telephone number, and a website address.

123

Argumentation Theorists Argue that an Ad is an Argument

509

3 The Ad as Argument Using Aristotle/Formal Logic From Aristotle, Platos most famous pupil, the Western tradition of formal logic became heir to the concept of the syllogism, named from the Greek word for bring together. In it, we construct a deductive argument wherein we bring together two premises containing a major term, a minor term, and a middle term, leading to a conclusion. When working with advertisements, especially if criticizing them, I always make the effort to construct a First-Figure Triple-A-Mood syllogism because it is most easily shown to be valid. This gives the advertiser the benet of the doubt and credits the company with at least having constructed a valid argument. I decided that Artistic Tiles basic argument for why one should buy their tiles, in plain English, is: You should buy our tiles because they are very stylish and we have a huge selection that has enabled us to create many unbelievably beautiful washrooms in peoples homes. Phrased in the actual language of the ad, in proper syllogism form, the argument is: All things that are alluring and overowing are things that make an unbelievable body of work. Artistic Tiles are things that are alluring and overowing. Artistic Tiles are things that make an unbelievable body of work. We might fairly easily agree that a large selection of alluring materials would lead to a good nished product. If we were willing to grant that the premises were true, given we have a valid argument, we would also have a sound argument, and therefore a true conclusion. Given the visual image in the ad, the more subtle argument that the advertiser makes on this page is, of course, more complex, and we will examine that later. My point here is to show that, using only what is evident in this ad, we can easily apply Aristotles classic terminology for analyzing an argument, to analyze the ad.

4 The Ad as Argument Using Informal Logic I use Informal Logic here as opposed to the Formal Logic of Aristotle and Plato, and in the sense of some of its tools, as opposed to its proponents, some representatives of which we will examine later, namely Johnson and Blair. One tool of Informal Logic with which we can analyze this ad is fallacies. The premises twice employ the fallacy of amphiboly, perhaps even equivocation, if we were to allow a visual image as equivalent to a word. The word overowing is linked with the image of the overowing breasts. The word body in the phrase body of work is linked with the image of the body of the woman. The arrangement supports one of advertisings favourite themes, sex, to make a connection between an abundant supply of tiles to create attractive washrooms in ones home, and the voluptuousness of a well-endowed model. A second tool of Informal Logic is the concept of acceptability/relevance/ sufciency. The use of objects unrelated to product attributes to sell the product is

123

510

M. L. Ripley

a major and frequent criticism of advertising. If this ad were selling womens lingerie, it would be appropriate, but it is selling construction materials and its composition is thereby questionable, and might even be considered unethical, given its exploitation of women. We need to examine the premises to see if they are reasonably true or factual given what we know of the situation surrounding them. We need to consider whether the premises are relevant to the conclusion, that is, to ask whether they make sense given the conclusion at which we arrived. And nally, we need to ask if the premises are enough to enable us to reach that conclusion. With this ad, we also nd ourselves able to use the tools in this triad from Informal Logic for the purpose of analysis. The ad loses in all three parts of the tripod. As a reader considering remodeling my washroom, I have no way of knowing for sure that all of Artistic Tiles tiles are alluring (much less overowing whatever that may mean). I am not at all convinced that everything that is alluring and overowing automatically leads to an unbelievable body of work. I have only to think of the overdone style of Rococo and my own taste for clean, stark, and modern to deny the acceptability of these premises. The tiles as advertised in the premises might be relevant to the surface appearance of the work, but they have no relevance to important issues like quality or endurance of the product. As for sufciency, the two premises have not told me enough about the tiles or the care taken in their installation to assure me of that conclusion, so I cannot call them sufcient. This triad of acceptability/relevance/sufciency may be used in many cases of analysis of advertisements involving the use of sexual imagery to sell products which have nothing, or little, to do with sex or sexuality. There are many other tools of Informal Logic that we could use, and again, as with formal logic, these are just two examples and not a full analysis. We can see, however, that it is possible to analyze an ad in the same way we would analyze any other argument with tools of Informal Logic.

5 The Ad as Argument Using Toulmin Stephen Toulmin arrived at an alternative to formal logic that could be used to analyze everyday argumentation. His 1958 model, constructed to show the structure of arguments, was particularly useful because it also was supposed to be eldindependent. This meant that the structure was the same regardless of the issues involved in the specic argument being analyzed. Toulmin delineated an argument as the grounds (backing, data, facts, evidence, considerations, features) on which the merits of the assertion are to depend. (Toulmin 1958, p. 11). In the language of Stephen Toulmin, an ad as an argument would have Data, Warrant, Backing, Conclusion, and sometimes Qualier and Rebuttal. In applying Toulmins model and terminology, I came to the shocking realization that the voluptuous half-naked woman used in so many advertisements may well be seen as the backing for the warrants that stand behind the claims of any ad which uses a half-dressed bimbo as its main enticement. This appears to contradict the specication of backing that Toulmin uses. Toulmin claimed that the backing for warrants can be expressed in the form of categorical statements of fact

123

Argumentation Theorists Argue that an Ad is an Argument

511

(Toulmin1958, p. 105). Toulmin sought a way to make analysis of argumentation closer to real life, and it is the Backing particularly that represents the real world in an analysis of an argument (Toulmin 2005). For that segment of the advertising world that uses the half-dressed bimbo, her representation in ads of an unbelievable body of work is indeed as fact. In his classic work on argumentation, the example that Toulmin uses to diagram an argument with Data, Warrant, Backing, Conclusion, Qualier, and Rebuttal is: Harry was born in Bermuda (D) So, presumably (Q) Harry is a British subject (C) Unless both his parents were aliens/he has become a naturalised American (R) Since A man born in Bermuda will generally be a British subject (W) On account of The following statutes and other legal provisions (B) (Toulmin 1958, p. 105) We can plug the elements of the Artistic Tile ad into that same structure (making up an added Qualier and Rebuttal that do not actually appear in this ad): Artistic Tiles are things that are alluring and overowing (D) So, presumably (Q) Artistic Tiles are things that make an unbelievable body of work. (C) Unless the contractors do a poor job of installing them (R) Since All things that are alluring and overowing are things that make an unbelievable body of work (W) On account of The fact that anything that can be represented in an advertisement by the body of a voluptuous half-naked woman must be itself an unbelievable body of work (B) Toulmin tells us that warrants are appealed to implicitly and that is the case here. Toulmin states further that [S]tanding behind our warrants there will normally be other assurances, without which the warrants themselves would possess neither authority nor currencythese other things we may refer to as the backing (B) of the warrants. He adds that the statements of warrantsare hypothetical, bridge-like statements, but the backing for warrants can be expressed in the form of categorical statements of fact quite as well as can the data appealed to in direct support of our conclusions (Toulmin 1958, p. 105). This is an important point in the case for why an advertisement is an argument. A lay-person seeing an ad might consider it a mere statement of opinion by the company: Our product is great. But a marketer, seeing that same ad, knows that thousands of dollars went into producing it, that not one element in the ad is there by accident, and that every item in an ad is aimed at getting the advertisers message across to the target market, the customer most likely to buy the product. This means that lying beneath the surface of the ad, unstated, unseen, are elements of backing that support the warrant that supports the claim. In this case, one element of

123

512

M. L. Ripley

backing is the still existent if unfair stereotypical view of the construction industry that a scantily clad well-endowed woman will automatically be admired. There also is as backing the frequent use in advertising of scantily clad well-endowed women to promote a variety of products that have nothing to do directly with gender or lingerie, such as automobile care products. Toulmin also said the measure of an argument is whether you can draw a conclusion from the premises (Toulmin 2005). The premises presented in the Artistic Tiles ad are that things that are alluring and overowing make for an unbelievable body of work, and that Artistic tiles have both those qualities. The conclusion we can draw is that Artistic Tiles will make an unbelievable body of work: an unbelievably beautiful washroom in your home. It appears we can draw a conclusion from the premises.

6 The Ad as Argument Using Johnson and Blair Most of Johnson and Blairs work can be used to support my argument. They dene an argument as a claim, together with one or more sets of reasons offered by someone to support that claim (Johnson and Blair 1994, p. 10). The Artistic Tile ad meets that denition. The claim is that using their tiles will create a beautiful washroom in your home. One reason offered as support is the fact that their tiles are alluring. Another reason is that they have a huge selection from which to choose. A third reason is that they have created an unbelievable body of work using these tiles. This is more than just the expression of an opinion. If we consider these three elements as warrants for the claim, there also exists, in Toulmins terms, the backing. The backing is the visual image of the beautiful scantily clad woman who is both alluring and overowing. This backing taps into a deeply-rooted North American xation on sex, used regularly to sell all kinds of products, and frequently in the construction industry. Johnson and Blair put forth a few arguments against an ad being an argument but I refute those arguments. In their chapter on advertising, Johnson and Blair claim (1) (2) (3) that advertising only mimics argumentation, suggesting that many ads come on as if they were dispensing reasons to a rational agent (p. 220) that ads only have the facade of arguments (p. 224) that advertising is best viewed as psychological persuasionan attempt to use psychological strategies to implant the name of a product in our unconscious minds (p. 225).

To these arguments I respond that todays advertiser knows that s/he must indeed dispense reasons to a rational agent. Advertising in the early and middle part of the twentieth century may have got away with simplistic mind tricks played on a relatively ignorant audience. Todays consumers, however, were raised on Sesame Street and had their awareness honed by exposure to more than 3,000 advertisements in any 24 h period and endless hours spent surng the Internet. They are indeed rational agents for whom even emotionally-targeted ads must be rationally and carefully thought out. Ads today do have far more than a facade of argument.

123

Argumentation Theorists Argue that an Ad is an Argument

513

As to their claim that advertising is not argument but mere psychological persuasion, I offer a quote from Professor James Klump, responding to Professor Leo Groarke in a discussion at the OSSA 2005 Hamilton Conference in which he referred to, Persuasion, enquiry, refutationthree types of argument even before Aristotle (Klump 2005). On the whole, Johnson and Blairs chapter on advertising supports my claim that an ad can be considered an argument.

7 The Ad as Argument Using Gilberts Multi-Modal Argumentation The existence of the ad as argument has been established in the business literature with respect to Michael Gilberts work on multi-modal argumentation (Ripley 1998, 1999; Ripley et al. 2000). Gilbert (1994) maintains that while argumentation traditionally has been associated with logic and reasoning, we need to examine three other modes of argument as well: emotional, visceral, and kisceral. (1) Logical Argument: An ad whose argument is predominantly logical will appeal to our reasoning and thinking processes. We can analyze it in traditional logical terms as we did in the section on Aristotle and Formal Logic. One of the problems in the Western tradition of argumentation which Gilberts model seeks to correct is that too often logical is taken to mean right and emotional to mean wrong. Any of Gilberts four modes may be right for any particular ad. We should not automatically conclude that because an ad uses an emotional (or physical or kisceral) argument that it thereby makes any less valid an argument than an ad using a predominantly logical argument. (2) Emotional Argument: By the time we moved to the specic language of the ad, we already were examining what Gilbert would label the emotional argument in this ad. All things that are alluring and overowing are things that make an unbelievable body of work. Artistic Tiles are things that are alluring and overowing. Artistic Tiles are things that make an unbelievable body of work. Here we encounter words like alluring and nd the outcome of assembling tiles in a construction project labelled, an unbelievable body of work. In both cases the ad uses phrases that appeal more to emotion than reason. Something that is alluring is more than just stylish; it touches us in a special way. An unbelievable body of work indicates more than just a project well done; it will be a part of our home to which we can feel deeply attached. (3) Visceral or Physical Argument: There is far more to this ad than the copy, which takes up less than 10% of the page. The most powerful argument is a visual, physical, or visceral argument. Viewing the deep rich red curtain, the gold mirrored tiles shaped curvaceously around the models overowing bosom, her simple but elegant hairstyle and earrings signifying style and wealth, we can put the visceral argument into syllogistic form as:

123

514

M. L. Ripley

All voluptuous, overowing, and rich things are things that make for an unbelievable body. Artistic Tiles are voluptuous, overowing, and rich things. Artistic Tiles are things that make an unbelievable body of work. I have deliberately left unclear the use of the word body. The word, as either amphiboly or equivocation, signies either the body of a woman or the body of work of a tile layer. The picture makes a visual argument for using Artistic Tiles in your renovation because they will bring to your home a richness of style, an excess of voluptuousness that will make your washroom a place of self-indulgent luxury. For ads like this one where there is very little copy, obviously the picture, or visceral argument, is important. Even for ads that are not mostly visual, however, such as high-tech product ads that contain a large amount of copy, there will usually be some kind of picture, a visual, visceral argument that backs up the logical one. (4) Kisceral or Intuitive Argument: To the three modes of argument Gilbert added his own term, kisceral, from the Japanese ki: energy, meaning non-logical communication that is a synthesis of experience and insight (Gilbert 1994, p. 176). The kisceral argument is fundamental in advertising. Most ads would lose much of their appeal if not allowed to fuse with our non-logical sense of connections. In previous work analyzing ads with Gilberts model, I have described the kisceral argument in the ad in a rst section where I lay out each of the overt arguments made in the ad. I then have proceeded to a separate section where I have analyzed the covert arguments made by the ads. This is especially effective in cases where I am examining ads that are damaging to particular groups such as women, minorities, or children (Ripley 1998, 1999). Rethinking the application of Gilberts model, however, I believe we can more simply nd the covert argument already incorporated within the kisceral mode of argumentation. In this case, the kisceral argument, phrased as a syllogism, can be stated as: All voluptuous things are things that attract other similar things (like this woman). Artistic Tiles are voluptuous things. Artistic Tiles are things that attract other similar things (like this woman). The unstated but hinted-at suggestion I see lying beneath all the visual and verbal play in this ad is that for male readers (and perhaps some female), if you construct a washroom using Artistic Tiles, a beautiful woman like this will come and play with you in the shower. For some female readers, the unstated suggestion is that you might BE that beautiful woman. You could never state such a thing directly; it would be silly. It is, however, the underlying sort of message behind most ads that feature a barely-dressed beautiful woman, particularly when the product itself has little to do with scantily-clad women. 8 The Ad as Argument Using van Eemeren and Grootendorst For van Eemeren and Grootendorst, argument is a verbal activity conducted in an ordinary language. It may be accompanied by non-verbal means of communication.

123

Argumentation Theorists Argue that an Ad is an Argument

515

It is a social activity, directed at other people, an activity of reason, in which the person arguing has clearly thought about the subject and tries to give a rational account of the position taken. An argument is more than holding an opinion, and starts with the presumption of controversy, the presumption that the other person does not agree with the arguer (van Eemeren et al. 1996, p. 2). An argument is a form of communication where one party attempts to convince the other party of the acceptability of a standpoint. Argumentation, in principle, consists of more than one sentence (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 28). In all instances, the ad for Artistic Tiles, and indeed almost any ad, ts their description. With the exception of an ad that consists of only a visual image, an ad as an argument is a verbal activity conducted in ordinary language, almost always accompanied by non-verbal communication (picture). It is denitely directed at other people. As we saw with the analysis of Johnson and Blair, it is an activity of reason since the advertiser today must contend with a more sophisticated consumer. It is usually planned along rational lines, except perhaps for the most deeply emotional or kisceral ads and therefore an ad today must present more than just an opinion. The advertiser requests the production of an ad with the presumption that the consumer is not in agreement that the product must be bought, otherwise an ad would not be necessary. Hence Artistic Tile probably approached their advertising agency to develop an ad to convince users of construction tiles of the acceptability of Artistic Tiles standpoint on their tiles, namely that: (1) Artistic Tiles has a huge selection of tiles, and (2) Artistic Tiles has tiles in alluring shapes, designs, and colours. And they did it in more than one sentence: Check out our overowing selection of alluring styles. Artistic Tile: You wont believe our body of work. This is the simple part of aligning the ad for Artistic Tiles with the early work of van Eemeren and Grootendorst on argumentation, and it was my original intent to stop there. I originally had not dared to presume to argue that an ad could be a dialectic argument. But from my youngest days when I contemplated those ads in The New Yorker magazine in my childhood home through to my doctoral days when I studied advertising and today as I teach it at York University, I have always pictured an ad as a dialogue. That dialogue takes place between the advertiser who says that s/he has the best possible product to meet the consumers needs and the consumer reading the magazine. The consumer either has no interest in the product at all, or currently uses a competitors brand and sees no reason to change to the advertisers, or possibly may even detest the product and want nothing to do with it. Whatever state the ad nds the reader in, it is the job of that ad, painstakingly and expensively planned, executed, and placed, to present an argument to that reader which will convince the reader of the correctness of the advertisers position, or standpoint. The person who constructs the ad knows what kinds of objections the reader will raise to the arguments presented in the ad and will present and answer those arguments as well, thus making it into a kind of dialogue. I decided, for the challenge of academic exploration, to end my paper with a brief examination of the possibility of the advertisement as dialectic argument. The crux of this position rests on two points. The rst point deals with the objective of the ad.

123

516

M. L. Ripley

If an ad is mere rhetoric or persuasion, using van Eemeren and Grootendorsts (1996, p. 90) description, the reader plays a passive role in a situation where the writer is allowed to use any means of persuasion with unlimited freedom and the objective is simply to win the audience over to the standpoint. Or the ad may have as its objective that of a dialectic argument: to resolve a dispute. Johnson and Blair (1994) would have us believe that ads are merely persuasion, but I maintain that the producer of an ad must go much further than this today and anticipate how the educated consumer will react to an ads message and incorporate within the ad, the answers to the readers expected responses to the ad. This leads us into the second point, the murky area of unspoken or unwritten utterances. This relates to the pragma-dialectic principle of externalization and the fact that we cannot attribute arguments to a person who has not made them. We need to consider how externalization affects advertising and visual argument. It may rst appear easy to say that the ad readers utterances remain unspoken or internal, to use the terminology of van Eemeren and Grootendorst. I maintain, however, that in a sense, the clever advertiser who has researched her target market knows quite well what the reader will respond. That advertiser has then incorporated the readers predicted internal utterances into the ad. I maintain that the clever advertiser, has, in van Eemeren and Grootendorsts terms, externalized those internal utterances, and has then answered them. In the ad for Artistic Tiles, a non-mixed dispute with only a positive standpoint put forward, the dialogue would be something like this: Advertiser (putting forth standpoint): Artistic Tiles has a huge selection of tiles in all kinds of shapes, designs, and colours. Reader: Theyre just washroom tiles, for heavens sake! How can I possibly get excited about washroom tiles?! Advertiser: But look closer! Look at those alluring curves and that overowing abundance just waiting for you in your own washroom! Look at those bedroom eyes! Look at what you could have if youd just buy our tiles! Reader: On second thought, maybe youre right. Ill use Artistic Tiles in my washroom renovation. Externalization is achieved by starting from what people have expressed, implicitly or explicitly, instead of speculating about what they think or believe Insofar as implicit elements can be made explicit in an adequate reconstruction, they can also be used, so that everything that creates a commitment for the language users is taken into account (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 10). People who work in advertising do a huge amount of research in focus groups and pretesting with target markets before ever putting pen to paper to design a particular ad. I maintain that this elaborate preparation serves to externalize what the potential reader is thinking as s/he reads the ad. This makes those once-implicit elements explicit and useable by the advertiser. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst maintain that In a dialectical perspective, the emphasis is on explaining the ways in which various argumentative moves contribute to resolving a difference of opinion (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 8). This is a particularly poignant quote because it tars both sides of an admitted argument with the brush that Johnson and Blair used to paint only

123

Argumentation Theorists Argue that an Ad is an Argument

517

advertisement as unworthy of the term argument: OPINION. An ad, however, is not just someone expressing an opinion about a product. An ad is not just someone saying that s/he believes the product is good. An ad is someone saying that the product is good because someone else obviously either does not think it is good or has not yet realized that the product is good and needs to be convinced of the goodness (or appropriateness, affordability, etc.) of the product. Considering the four stages in resolution of a dispute (Confrontation, Opening, Argumentation, Concluding), in some sense, stages two, three and four are all rolled into one in a print ad. This is because we have only the single moment, the time at which the reader views the visual material and reads the advertising copy. It is the job of the ad to do three things. The ad must put forth the standpoint of the advertiser. The ad must advance arguments to defend the standpoint against arguments with which the advertiser suspects, given good marketing research, the reader will respond to the ad. And nally, the ad must make it clear to the reader before s/he turns the page that this product is indeed worth buying. A dispute between an advertiser and reader of an ad may end in one of two ways. The dispute may be settled, or set aside, by the reader turning the page without remembering the ad in any signicant way. The dispute may be resolved in one of two ways. Since the arguer, in this case the advertiser, cannot retract its standpoint, the consumer, the reader, will either retract any doubts held about the advertisers standpoint on the product and resolve to buy it, or the consumer will redouble doubts and conrm the original position not to buy the product. Whether we call what an ad starts from an opinion or a standpoint, what is not at issue is the fact that the standpoint needs defending. In the words of van Eemeren and Grootendorst, A standpoint only requires defense if not everybody fully agrees with it. It may have become clear that this lack of agreement is the case, but it is also sufcient if there is a suspicion that this might be the case. In principle, a discursive text can always be regarded as part of a discussion, real or imagined by the arguer, in which the arguer reacts to criticism that has been or might be leveled against his points of view (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 13). The advertiser has decided that not everybody fully agrees with his/her standpoint (that you should buy the product), otherwise s/he would not spend the money to run the ad. At various points, van Eemeren and Grootendorst discuss the need for there to be doubt concerning the standpoint (e.g. 1992, p. 16) in order for there to be an argument. There is obviously doubt in the mind of any advertiser or s/he would not advertise. A producer can never assume the consumer will purchase the product. The very existence of advertising may well indicate that an ad is a dispute between two parties: the producer of the ad who believes that the reader should purchase the product, and the reader of the ad who does not believe at rst that s/he should purchase it. Finally in defense of my position that an ad may be considered a dialectical argument, I cite van Eemeren and Grootendorsts own use of an ad as an example of a dialectical argument: The recommendation [to opt for such a resolution-oriented decision procedure as the strategy of maximally argumentative interpretation] applies, for example, to the following passage from an advertisement for trousers:

123

518

M. L. Ripley

Supremely comfortable and yet always smart. The material, a brand-quality jersey of 100% diolen/polyester, is elastic in both length and breadth and yet keeps its shape perfectly. The nish leaves nothing to be desired. Its just as impeccable as the cloth and moreover is subjected to very stringent quality control (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 49).

9 Conclusion In none of these cases do I mean to say that because we can t a particular advertisement to someones denition of an argument that therefore all ads are arguments, but I do believe that having shown that we can take even a nearly totally visual ad with very few words and nd in it the denitions, demarcations, delineations, and descriptions of argument put forth by leading scholars in the eld of argumentation from Aristotle down to the argumentation scholars of Amsterdam today, I am reasonably secure in stating that an ad is indeed an argument. What is less secure, but more exciting, and what provokes more exploration and further study, is the statement that an ad may be a dialectic argument. Future work also should examine the way in which we express emotional arguments. It has long troubled me, working with the arguments in advertisements, that when I am analyzing an emotional, visceral, or kisceral argument, I am immediately casting it into the format of the traditional syllogism which is automatically associated with logic. In so doing, I believe I cause the emotional argument to lose some of its power, and yet I do not know of a way to otherwise examine the emotional argument.

References
Gilbert, Michael A. 1994. Multi-modal argumentation. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 2: 159177. Groarke, Leo. 2005. Political cartoons in a Stephen Toulmin landscape. In The uses of argument: Proceedings of a conference at McMaster University 1821 May 2005, eds. David Hitchcock, and Daniel Farr, 186188. Hamilton Ontario: Media Production Services of McMaster University. Johnson, Ralph H., and J. Anthony Blair. 1994. Logical self-defense. New York: McGraw Hill, Inc. Klump, James. 2005. Response to professor Leo Groarke, presentation discussion at the 2005 conference of the Ontario society for the study of argumentation. Hamilton, Ontario: McMaster University. Ripley, M. Louise. 1998. Multi-modal argumentation: An approach to ethical decision making in advertising. In Emerging issues in business and technology conference proceedings 1214 November 1998, eds. Paul C. Thistlethwaite, et al., Vol. 11, 165171. Macomb, Illinois: College of Business and Technology, Western Illinois University. Ripley, M. Louise. 1999. The creation of a youth culture: Distortion in a dark glass. In Emerging issues in business and technology conference proceedings 2830 October 1999, eds. Paul C. Thistlethwaite, et al., Vol. 10, 186192. Macomb, Illinois: College of Business and Technology, Western Illinois University. Ripley, M. Louise, Monica Ben, and Audra Townsend. 2000. Toward a method of measurement of the accuracy of underlying assumptions. In Emerging issues in business and technology conference proceedings, eds. Dale Schoeld, Paul C. Thistlethwaite, Ronald J. Bauerly, and Sheena R. Knight, Vol. 10, 223229. Macomb, Illinois: College of Business and Technology, Western Illinois University.

123

Argumentation Theorists Argue that an Ad is an Argument

519

Slade, Christina. 2002. Reasons to buy: The logic of advertisements. Argumentation 16: 157178. Toulmin, Stephen. 1958. The uses of argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Toulmin, Stephen. 2005. Keynote speech at the 2005 conference of the Ontario society for the study of argumentation. Hamilton, Ontario: McMaster University. van Eemeren, Frans H., and Rob Grootendorst. 1992. Argumentation, communication, and fallacies. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. van Eemeren, Frans H., and Rob Grootendorst. 1996. Analyzing argumentative discourse. In 1990, Perspectives on argumentation: Essays in honor of Wayne Brockriede, eds. Robert Trapp and Janice Schuetz. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. van Eemeren, Frans H., Rob Grootendorst, and Francisca Snoeck Henkemans. 1996. Fundamentals of argumentation theory: A handbook of historical backgrounds and contemporary developments. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

123