Is it a Monologue, a Dialogue or a turn in a Dialogue?

The various approaches prevalent in argumentation theory take as their fundamental unit of analysis the concept of ‘an argument’. It is generally assumed that any unit of argument is inherently dialectical: Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992), for example, use the notion of an “implicit discussion”. It has recently been recognised, however, that there may be important differences between arguments found in monologic situations and those found in dialogue. Once the distinction has been drawn between monologue and dialogue, a number of important questions arise: How can we define a monologue? How does a monologue differ from a turn in a dialogue? What are the linguistic and contextual parameters that affect monologue and dialogue, and how do these parameters impact the resultant form of argument? How can we classify a given argument, and does that classification then affect subsequent evaluation? This paper draws on presentations and discussions held at the Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argument held in March 1997, and in particular, the work of Vorobej (1997), Blair (1997) and Reed (1997). In this paper, the frameworks proposed by Blair and Reed are summarised and, adducing Vorobej’s comments, a number of problems with each are identified. This facilitates the subsequent construction of a model which both clearly distinguishes monologue and dialogue and integrates elements of both earlier models. The paper examines how the distinction between the process of constructing an argument and the resultant textual product plays a vital role in classifying a discourse. Furthermore, it is argued that it is impossible to classify an argument without consideration of the context in which it was created, and that that contextual information is not necessarily manifest in the text of an argument.