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Contemporary Argumentation and DebateThe Journal of the Cross Examination Debate Association

Volume 32 2011

Edited by

Jennifer L. Bevan Chapman University

Gordon Stables University of Southern California

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Contemporary Argumentation and Debate is published annually by the Cross Examination Debate Association. The purpose of this Journal is to provide a va-riety of perspectives on the theory and practice of argumentation and debate. Articles published in this Journal reflect only the opinion of their authors and in no way represent the opinions of the Association, its officers, or the editors of this Journal.

Contemporary Argumentation and DebateJournal of the Cross Examination Debate Association

Volume 32 2011

FEATURED ARTICLES

Impossible convictions: Convictions and intentionality 1in performance and switch-side debate Kelly M. Young

A functional analysis of the 2011 English language 45Canadian Prime Minister Debate William L. Benoit

CAD Forum

Introduction: Debate as pedagogy 70 Michael Davis

Competition as education: Bringing the tournament 73to the classroom William E. Mosley-Jensen

Who cares?: Learning perspective taking through 79stakeholders Jarrod Atchison

Switch-side debate exercise 85 Kevin Kuswa

The public debate writing assignment: Developing an 92academically engaged debate audience Michael Davis & Peter Bsumek

Call for manuscripts

Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, 2011 1

IMPOSSIBLE CONVICTIONS: CONVICTIONS AND INTENTIONALITY IN PERFORMANCE

AND SWITCH-SIDE DEBATEKelly M. Young, Wayne State University

The article examines two scholarly discussions about the role and effect of sincerity and convictions in competitive debate. A number of debate practices and theories are animated by a desire to regulate students’ intentions and beliefs in debate. The essay contends that these efforts are problematic and misunderstand contemporary speech act theory. It draws insights from J. L. Austin, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler to contend that we should redefine our understanding of speech acts and switch side debate from a deconstructive perspective.

Since the beginning of tournament style switch-side debates in the early 20th century, forensic educators and other observers have been rather anxious about the marginalization of the role of students’ sincere beliefs in competitive debate practice. According to Murphy (1957), President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his 1913 autobiography that he “was ‘exceeding glad’ that as a student at Harvard he never ‘practiced debating,’” because the contests assigned students sides to debate regardless of their true beliefs on the issues (p. 1). Almost a century later, Massey (2006a) contends that, “college debate is public debate. When we separate the two…administrators and communication professors see debate as a game, with minor education benefits. This is when debate dies” (para. 18). These concerns about the role of debaters’ convictions have steered two highly related theoretical discussions in recent years. First, with the expansion of critique/kritik arguments in general and performance debate in particular, debate strategies

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increasingly “shift from playing a game to making debate ‘real’” by advocating deeply held beliefs that use personal narratives, enactments, and claims of sincerity as grounds for argument (Woods, 2003, p. 94). Second, recent criticism of the competitive practice of switch-sides debate (SSD), evoking earlier scholarly debate about the ethical implications of the practice from the 1950s and 1960s, also posit a desire to restore student’s true convictions as an important element of contemporary debate advocacy (Greene & Hicks, 2005; Massey, 2006a, 2006b). Both of these theoretical dialogues have generated a number of responses in both academic circles and in-round debates. Yet, despite the intense and somewhat diverse debate about convictions in debate, few, if any, of these exchanges have raised some foundational questions that seem most relevant in our understanding of the role of genuine beliefs in competitive debate: how do we recognize that students are debating from their true convictions? What if a student lies or does not understand his/her true convictions? If utterances in a debate represent speech acts or binding statements of conviction, what conditions and contexts are necessary for those statements to have an effect? And what underlying logic justifies using sincerity as the governing principle of competitive debate and how does it impact our understanding of the force of performative utterances and competitive debate practices like SSD?

In investigating a number of these questions, I examine the two debates about sincere beliefs to explore the assumptions both discussions make about the nature and force of discourse, particularly in relation to how they position intentionality and sincerity as determining the ethics and effects of speech acts. The essay interrogates how our theoretical and in-round competitive discussions about performance and public commitments utilize a limited and problematic understanding of the force and nature of public utterances. In doing so, a number


of insights are drawn from Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler’s works on convictions, intentionality, and speech acts.

In this essay, I begin by reviewing scholarly discussion about the recent performative turn in competitive debate and the stakes involved in the debates about SSD. Next, I examine J. L. Austin, Derrida, and Butler’s discussions of the nature and function of performative utterances and their relationship to speakers’ convictions and intentions and how this debate can inform our understanding of both performances and student beliefs. Lastly, I consider the implications that this understanding of performance and conviction has on competitive debate theory and practice.

Nature and Function of Performance Debate

There is very little theoretical scholarship on the use of performance or speech act theory in competitive debate (Tallungan, 2009). With a few notable exceptions (e.g., Albiniak, 2011; Cheshier, n.d.; Smith, 2002; Tallungan, 2009; Zompetti, 2004), most discussion of performance debate is made in passing reference within broader ruminations about critique arguments. While most theorists agree that this relatively new type of argumentative strategy is here to stay and has radically altered the game of debate (Albiniak, 2011; Louden, 2004), there is very little agreement on what the term “performance” means in the context of competitive debate. According to Tallungun (2009),

Generally, there is a wide-spectrum of beliefs on [what constitutes performance] with the two extremes being (1) all debate is performative and (2) only speeches that challenge traditional debate styles and substances through non-traditional forms…are performative. (p. 66)

On the non-traditional end of the spectrum, theorists

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like Speice and Lyle (2003) comment on this style of debate in arguing that “performance arguments speak to the aesthetic value of speech….they can include reading poetry, offering an ironic justification for the resolution, or arguing that the resolution itself can be read performatively” (para. 4). From this perspective, performance debates recast the role of the judge’s ballot as a vote for the way in which the first affirmative constructive (1AC) was presented (Speice & Lyle, 2003). Somewhat similarly, Smith (2002) describes performance as a perspective that erases the form/substance distinction in argument, which, according to him, transforms just about everything done in a debate into a performance. As Smith (2002) explains, how debaters speak, move, or dress could all constitute a performance from a performative outlook.

On the other end of the spectrum, theorists like Solt (2004) and Cheshier (n.d.) approach performance debate as speech acts, in which the “words uttered in a debate do things” (Solt, 2004, p. 49). Drawing from Austin’s (1975) seminal work on language as performance, Butler’s (1993) work on the performative nature of gender, and Turner’s (1988) understanding of art as a performantive opposition, this perspective on performance contends that utterances in debate do more than simply advance true/false statements. Instead, these statements do things, like articulate identities, frame issues, make promises, and in themselves operate as political acts (Cheshier, n. d.; Solt, 2004). While aesthetic elements of a speech act can be included within this perspective, they do not fully constitute the idea of speech acts or performative utterances (Albiniak, 2011).

According to proponents of this latter view, this perspective of performance is valuable for three reasons. First, it avoids the tendency to conflate the form and substance of argument. For example, even after identifying that performance as aesthetics is a critique of


the substance/form divide, Smith (2002) then proceeds to discuss only aesthetic elements of a debate. However, when examining performance as speech acts, form is not particularly important to evaluating the debate. Instead, what matters most is the context and its conventional rules that govern the force or effect of the speech act (Austin, 1975; Culler, 1981). Likewise, Evans (2011b) argues that performance as a speech act allows for the assessment of the “full [speech] act, including who is speaking, what they are speaking (the relationship between the two) and so on” (para. 2). Thus, proponents contend that we should hold teams accountable for what they do in debates and evaluate debates based on the authenticity and sincerity of students’ performances (Evans, 2011b; Massey, 2006a). Second, this view of performance seeks to counter the charge that competitive policy debate is esoteric and insular to the “real world.” Rather than debate for and against policy changes that will not be implemented at the end of the debate, the performance as speech act perspective maintains that the discourse in the debate can challenge and transform our traditional notions of epistemology, ontology, and politics well beyond a singular debate (Solt, 2004; Tallungan, 2009). Third, this approach towards performance is simply more appropriate for the literature base that is often evoked in its defense. Several performance debates will use poetry, music, or other non-traditional forms of evidence or data and then read evidence from political theorists like Bleiker (2000) or Butler (1993) to contend that using these non-traditional forms of argument deconstruct epistemic, gender, and racial hierarchies. These theorists draw from Austin (1975) and Derrida (1988) in order to understand discourse as language in action. For instance, Bleiker (2000) explains, “language thus becomes action itself because ‘we use language not merely to talk about action, but to act’” (p. 209). In addition, Butler’s (1997) seminal book on the politics of the performative, Excitable Speech,

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uses elements borrowed from Austin (1975), Althusser (2001), and Derrida (1988).

Despite the fact that the theorists who provide the strongest defense for the performative power of discourse draw from Austin (1975) and Derrida (1988), very few debaters read evidence or base their arguments within the performative frameworks articulated by these theorists. As a result, much of academic debate’s engagement with the exciting possibilities offered by this literature is lost as the students selectively adopt in self-serving fashion from this work. Examples of these self-serving practices include the debaters who present a hodge-podge of arguments from various critical theorists to generate offensive responses to opponents’ arguments with no understanding of the implications and contractions created at the intersections of those theorists’ ideas. Or, they realize that there are contradictions but know that it would take the other side too long to explain them and so these problems are simply glossed over. Worse, many of the debate practices adopted to defend elements of performance debate may run contrary to this literature base. For example, opponents of performative arguments will often run quasi-counterplans that select and advocate parts of the 1AC performance or permute part of the negative’s performative framework. In response, teams will contend that their opponents cannot “just snatch [the performance] and add it [to their speech]….Kritik is a verb, and not a noun, which means you have to do it in order for it to be done” (Evans, 2011a, para. 15). Similarly, teams will contend that their opponents’ attempt to capture part of their performance is inauthentic and insincere because they did not initiate the performance (Zompetti, 2004). However, given Butler’s (1997) and Derrida’s (1988) perspectives on the performative, which will be discussed at length later in this essay, these claims to an authentic and sincere performance are perhaps problematic. Before we


turn to that discussion, I want to explore a second recent development that relates to sincerity and convictions: the contemporary debate about the ethics and effect of switch-sides debate (SSD).

The Debate about SSD

1950-1960s: SSD as Unethical Indoctrination

Speech communication journals have hosted a number of debates about the ethical implications of the debate tournament practice of having students debate both sides of a given proposition. With the rise of tournament-style debate competitions in the 1930s, debate educators became highly concerned about the ethical and pedagogical value of having students debate against their convictions by having to switch sides on a topic each round. In 1954, the selection of the national college debate topic, Resolved: that the United States should extend diplomatic recognition to the communist government of China, generated a great deal of controversy (English, Llano, Mitchell, Morrison, Rief, & Woods., 2007). At the height of the Cold War and McCarthyism, a number of schools such as the military academies refused to affirm the topic in fear that affirmation would “indoctrinate America’s youth, while giving aid and comfort to the enemy” (English et al., 2007, p. 222).

Within this context, Murphy (1957) outlines the fundamental objection to SSD in arguing, “debate…is a form of public speaking. A public statement is a public commitment. Before one takes the platform, [he/she] should study the question, [he/she] should discuss it until [he/she] knows where [he/she] stands. Then [he/she] should take that stand” (p. 2). In his review of public speaking ethics literature, Murphy (1957) contends that when students argue against their convictions, they are both immoral and “public liar[s]” (p. 2). To avoid this, Murphy (1957) argues that students should debate only

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from their sincere beliefs.

In their response to Murphy (1957), both Cripe (1957) and Dell (1958) maintain that tournament-style debating is a unique form of analytic speaking that is different than persuasive debate about political conviction. As such, both scholars suggest that there is great pedagogical value to viewing controversies from both sides within an educational setting. Additionally, Dell (1958) contends that because all ethics are contextual, SSD should be seen as an ethical practice. Of the many arguments raised and debated, the two most frequently discussed were: (1) that debate tournaments are or are not public speaking situations; and (2) that SSD does or does not teach essential logical skills necessary to avoid dogmatism (Cripe, 1957; Galloway, 2007; Murphy, 1957). Put differently, Cripe (1957) explains, “the whole problem seems to be one of definition, of defining what ‘debate’ is, and what ‘ethical’ means” (p. 209).

Central to these broader ethics arguments is the status of students’ convictions. For instance, according to Murphy (1957), students are most likely to have well-developed convictions prior to engaging in debate and SSD only creates confusion for students in what they sincerely believe. In response, Cripe (1957) and Dell (1958) maintain that debaters can separate their true feelings while making the best possible case for a different side for the purposes of competition. In addition, they refute Murphy’s argument that students have firm convictions on a number of complicated topics prior to debating. As they conclude, students’ true beliefs are likely underdeveloped and can be best clarified and strengthened by SSD. Additionally, according to Cripe (1957) and Dell (1958), SSD helps develop good future citizens because it best guards against the development of rigid ideological views. Summarizing the debate aptly, Greene and Hicks (2005) conclude, “at the heart of the ‘debate about debate’…was


the idea of conviction and how it should guide the moral economy of liberal citizenship” (p. 100).

In their later review of the controversy, Klopf and McCroskey (1964) maintain that the debate over the ethics of SSD is over. As they explain,

The relative ethic has been accepted by a large majority of those involved directly with academic debate. Both by their opinions and their actions they believe switch-sides debating is ethical. So do we. The controversy over the ethics of debating both sides is [finished]! (para. 25-26)

While the majority of coaches and directors may have declared SSD ethical, the status and importance of student convictions remained up for debate, as we see in another debate 40 years later.

2000s: SSD as Cultural Technology of Imperialism

Greene and Hicks (2005) revisited the 1950-1960s debate to interrogate the cultural effect that results from the promotion of SSD debate as a corrective for intransigence. Rather than assess the ethical implications of SSD on students, Greene and Hicks (2005) examine:

The articulation of the debate community as a zone of dissent against McCarthyist tendencies developed into a larger and somewhat uncritical affirmation of switch-side debate as a “technology” of liberal participatory democracy….tied to a normative conception of American democracy that justifies imperialism. (English et al., 2007, p. 223-224)

In advancing this argument, Greene and Hicks (2005) contend that SSD creates a gap between a student’s “embodied speech act and his/her speech convictions” that allows for the privileging of a method of conflict resolution that is based on reason rather than beliefs or

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authority (p. 120). As they conclude, the controversy “pre-figures how a deliberative theory of democracy requires a moral theory of the subject to prepare that subject for the transformational potential associated with the ‘gentle force of the better argument’” (Greene & Hicks, 2005, p. 120). Greene and Hicks’ implied alternative to SSD returns to the earlier form of debate that “privileges personal conviction” as the governing element of debate (Stannard, 2006, para. 32). In doing so, they suggest that academic debate should close the gap between the speech act of debate and the individual’s first order convictions.

Following Greene and Hicks’ (2005) lead, Massey (2006a) calls on academic debate coaches to reform SSD in order to allow students debating on the affirmative of a topic the space to express their true beliefs. Somewhat mirroring Murphy’s (1957) concerns, Massey (2006a) maintains that “we should not separate speech from conviction…discourse creates reality, and we must examine the effects that verbalizing things [students] might disagree with could have on the [audience]” (para. 17). In a different argument, Massey (2006a) is concerned that students are harmed by SSD because recent debate resolutions always require the affirmative to defend action by the United States federal government and state action. As he further explains, affirmative debaters must always debate from an “exceptionalists view” without ever interrogating the federal government’s role in causing a host of problems (Massey, 2006a, para. 11). Consequently, Massey (2006a) contends that SSD

…forces a one way ideological conformity, rather than a give and take reflection that most proponents of switch side debate want to presume. My position is debate can be a training ground for discussing those issues that are important to debaters, and giving students agency for dealing with your own personal oppressions and inequalities. (para. 11)


To best capture the benefits of SSD, Massey (2006b) claims that students on the negative are required to refute whatever the affirmative team presents, which gains “all the benefits of switch side debate” (para. 2). Ultimately, Massey’s criticism has less to do with Greene and Hicks’s (2005) concern with the cultural effect of promoting a certain model of liberal citizenship and more with the potential exceptionalist effect that having to defend the United States federal government has on students. However, like Greene and Hicks, Massey privileges the verbal expression of conviction as what should regulate student advocacy.

In response to Greene and Hicks (and as an effect, responding to Massey as well), English et al. (2007) defend SSD in arguing that “rather than acting as a cultural technology expanding American exceptionalism, switch side debating originates from a civic attitude that serves as a bulwark against fundamentalism of all stripes” (p. 224). Similarly, Stannard (2006) contends that conviction-driven debate would produce “simultaneous zones of speech activism” that cause students to be:

…so wrapped up in their own micropolitics, or so busy preaching to themselves and their choirs, that they will never understand or confront the rhetorical tropes used to mobilize both resource and true believers in the service of continued material domination. (para. 35)

Thus, for English et al. (2007) and Stannard (2006), SSD is a technology that prevents the very moral and cultural problems that concern Greene and Hicks (2005) and Massey (2006a).

In an additional defense, Galloway (2007) outlines a dialogic model of competitive debate that “preserves the affirmative team’s obligation to uphold the debate resolution” while, at the same time, allowing the speech

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act of the debater to take a number of forms (e.g., critical, performative, policy) (p. 2). Once offered, the affirmative speech act awaits response from the negative. The promise of the model, according to Galloway (2007), is that it preserves the stable predictability of a resolution while allowing debaters to engage these propositions in a number of ways. In making this argument, Galloway (2007) responds to advocates of conviction-driven debate in contending that SSD does not cause students to lose their beliefs. Instead, “conviction is not a priori to discussion, it flows from it” through the testing of ideas and beliefs (p. 11).

Ultimately, both debates about SSD are founded on the idea that student convictions are important. However, what is disputed is the impact that communication has on these convictions. For instance, for the opponents of SSD, conviction exists prior to public debate and is grounded in the sincere intentions of the speaker (Murphy, 1957). Yet, these beliefs are fragile, as they are always at risk of being corrupted and lost in public argument. For the supporters of SSD, conviction is something discovered, tested, and sustained through public speech acts. While both of these positions bank a great deal on the importance and role of student convictions in speech acts, there is no discussion in these debates about how students construct or convey these beliefs through communication and performance. Given that academic debate remains a communication activity, how we convey our sincere beliefs and what effect those speech acts have are rather important issues to explore. In that vein, the next section of this essay explores the speech act theories of Austin, Butler, and Derrida and their implications for these debates about sincere beliefs and performance.

Speech Act, Performance Theory, and Convictions

As my review of both performance debate theory


and the reoccurring debate over SSD suggests, a number of questions about the expression of convictions remain unanswered. For instance, how do we recognize that students are debating from their true beliefs? What effect do these convictions have on debates? What are the effects of using convictions as the governing principle to evaluate speech acts or promote competitive debate? Before answers to these questions can be discerned, I now turn to speech act theory, as it may provide a number of insights into the underlying concerns about student convictions in competitive debate.

Austin’s Speech Act Theory

For many years in linguistic and rhetorical study, the prevailing explanation of the operation of linguistics was that the conscious speaker and his/her sincere intentions controlled the meaning of communication within a rhetorical situation (Culler, 1981). Argumentation and communication scholarship also often presumed that the “primary purpose of language was to be descriptive or make true or false (constantive) statements about the world” (Alfino, 1991, p. 144). However, Austin (1975) maintains that several statements do not fit within the constantive category. Rather, many utterances “actually perform the action to which they refer (e.g., ‘I promise to pay you tomorrow’)” (Culler, 1981, p. 16). In his work, Austin (1975) argues that these performative statements, rather than being a special case, constitute a majority of statements while the constantive is a special case of the performative.

Austin (1975) also identifies two levels of effect for any speech act to further clarify the nature and use of performative utterances. The first is the perlocutionary effect, which is the psychological consequences of the speech act, which include motivating and persuading an immediate audience. In swaying or moving the audience,

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the speech act may convince someone to change his/her feelings or thoughts or even take action. But these changes may be indirect as they affect an intermediary person and occur over time as a result of the original speech act (Butler, 1997). The second level is illocutionary force, which is the performative effects of declaring, identifying, promising, and requesting. As Austin (1975) explains, illocutionary force is the “performance of an act in saying something as opposed to performance of an act of saying something” (pp. 99-100). Illocutionary force is a direct consequence of a speech act; however, the force of the speech act is not located within “merely a single moment” and cannot succeed with just a simple utterance (Butler, 1997, p. 3). Rather, illocutionary effects rely on a number of prior conventions and rituals. For example, as Austin (1975) suggests, successful illocutionary acts depend on a number of conditions:

(A.1) There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect, that procedure to include the uttering of certain words by certain persons in certain circumstances, and further, (A.2) the particular person and circumstances in a given case must be appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked. (B.1) The procedure must be executed by all participants both correctly and (B.2) completely. (pp. 14-15)

In outlining these various conditions for effective performances, Austin seeks to demonstrate that the conditions and conventions of a given context are what control the illocutionary effect of discourse. In doing so, he privileges convention and context over the consciousness and intentions of speakers as the source of performative effect.

While elevating the importance of context over speaker’s intentions, Austin (1975) also awkwardly seeks


to exclude non-serious, or what he calls “parasitic,” speech acts (p. 22). For instance, he considers performances by an actor or statements made in jest as intelligible yet parasitic uses of language. Yet, in excluding these fake or infelicitous speech acts, Austin (1975) inadvertently privileges the conscious speaker and his/her sincere intentions as the center of his speech act system—the very thing he sought to avoid (Bérubé, 2004).

Derrida and Butler’s Speech Act Theory

In highlighting the shortcoming of Austin’s (1975) desire to preserve conscious intentions and sincerity, Derrida (1988) asks: can communication have an inherent, intended and sincere meaning? In responding to his own question, Derrida (1988) maintains that sincere intentions cannot control a speech act because it is constantly repeatable—iterable—as it is cited and recited by different speakers in different contexts. While the speaker might have a genuine purpose in making a statement, as the statement is used and repeated by other speakers in different contexts, the meaning and the force of the statement changes. For example, if debate students use this article as evidence in a debate brief, I cannot control how they use material from this essay in their arguments. As more and more students cite the argument, we all become multiple “authors” of the speech act. Likewise, my citation of various scholars within this essay creates an assemblage of ideas that have very different meaning and force once combined into this article. Thus, while many people helped create this document, the absence of their intent and presence allows me to deploy their ideas and thoughts in different ways.

Influenced by de Saussure’s (1972) notions of linguistic structuralism, absence and presence, and diachronic studies of meaning and Barthes’s (1977) work on the “death of the author,” Derrida contends, that the “structure

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of absence” in all uses of language allows all utterances to be endlessly cited and iterated (Alfino, 1991, p. 146). This inherent possibility of continuous citation and repetition, according to Derrida, is the very condition in which discourse remains meaningful and has effect, even if the meaning is different in each new context (Alfino, 1991). Within Derrida’s (1988) system of speech acts, authorial intent does not disappear, but instead must be understood as an effect that “no longer [is] able to govern the entire scene and the system of utterance” (p. 20). Additionally, the privileging of the author’s sincere intentions and beliefs in an appropriate context for a performance should be understood as an attempt to restrict the infinite meanings of the performance (Stocker, 2006). In addition, Derrida (1988) contends that sincere intentions and beliefs cannot control systems of meaning because we cannot read the speaker’s mind, our communication always expresses more than we anticipate, and intention and belief is never fully present to the speaker due to the unconscious. Consequently, what matters most in a speech act is how context makes possible the structure, conventions, and meaning of communication.

In making these arguments, Derrida (1988) maintains what Austin wants to exclude—the non-serious and infelicitous performance. In doing so, Derrida argues that the possibility of non-serious or fake performances and reiterations of performances demonstrate that intentionality and sincerity do not regulate the absolute meaning of a speech act. Instead, the system is never fully closed. Rather, it is porous and constantly open to change due to the context and conventions within and outside the immediate context in which the performance occurs (Derrida, 1988).

In her ruminations about the nature of injurious speech and the problems associated with censorship, Butler (1997) builds on Austin’s and Derrida’s works to


argue that a structural gap between intention and sincerity and an utterance is necessary in order for language to have agency. Like Derrida, Butler (1997) contends that language and speech acts are always plagued with excess. As she further explains, the speech act is “always to some extent unknowing about what it performs, that it always says something that it does not intend” (Butler, 1997, p. 10). Even in the situation where a predetermined topic is up for discussion – like a resolution for debate – Butler (1997) would contend that meaning remains unsettled because the words in the topic and the arguments made for either side of the topic do not have stable meaning. For instance, thousands of debates each year occur under a shared national debate resolution, yet each debate is significantly different than the other, even when they deal with similar sub-sets of the resolution. The very fact that there is no consensus on what a debate resolution precisely means at the end of a debate season and debates are performed so differently under one topic throughout a season demonstrates the play and excess of speech acts. This structural inability to master or control our performances and speech acts for Butler (1997) does not mark the failure of communication; instead, it serves as its radical potential. For example, without a gap between intention and beliefs and utterance, discourse is unrecoverable and fixed. However, if a gap does exist, contested and once harmful words like “queer” can be re-appropriated and given new meaning within different contexts by different speakers. This does not mean that the discourse is acceptable uncritically; rather, the new use of the terms demonstrate the exclusive nature of the rhetoric and produces a democratic contestation over formerly racist or misogynist discourse that extend the range of the term. For instance, the activist group Queer Nation re-appropriates the term “queer” in order to contest the exclusive nature of labels such as “gay,” “lesbian,” or “homosexual.” In doing so, the group seeks to highlight

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the homophobic fear of what is “queer” by turning the term against itself, as the group’s motto, “We’re here. We’re Queer. Get used to it!” signifies (Brontsema, 2012). Another example of re-appropriation can be seen as a result of the recent decision by Arizona’s Tucson Unified School District to ban certain books from the district’s Mexican-American Studies program. The action caused several activists to form the Librotraficante Caravan, an underground and traveling library featuring the work of writers who were banned by the district. The group’s name – book trafficker – and tactics reclaim a number of negative stereotypes surrounding immigration, like the underground smuggling/trafficking of goods (Steiner, 2012). Through this re-appropriation over time, these terms lose their harmful effect and can be used in new and powerful ways through iteration (Butler, 1993, 1997).

Due to this break between belief, intent, and rhetoric, the force and power of discourse cannot be located in a single speech act. As Butler (1997) explains in the context of hate speech, “racist speech works through the invocation of convention; it circulates, and though it requires a subject for its speaking, it neither begins nor ends with the subject who speaks or with the specific name that is used” (p. 34). In other words, the illocutionary force of a speech act comes from the prior conventions and citational history that both precedes and conditions the use of particular discourse. While an individual can be liable for what is said at a perlocutionary level, reprimanding and rejecting the speech act does little to curb the force and power of the discourse at an illocutionary level of uptake. Indeed, such attempts actually lock into place injurious speech, “preserving their power to injure, and arresting the possibility of a reworking that might shift their context and purpose” (Butler, 1997, p. 38). Instead of preserving this injurious history, efforts to reclaim or re-signify discourse require laying claim to a term or utterance and using it


against its “constitutive historicity” (Butler, 1993, p. 227).

Yet, to Butler (1993), re-signification or the queering of language through performance is not simply a question of will or conviction. Rather, performance requires both the enactment of the utterance and the transference of binding power onto that utterance. The authority of the act is not determined by an external judge or the intent and convictions of the speaker; instead, it is located in the citational history of the discourse (Butler, 1993).

General Implications for Policy Debate

What is the importance of this speech act theory for our understanding of the nature and effect of sincere conviction and performance in competitive debates? Academic policy debate operates as a speech act system that is in many ways similar to Derrida’s idea of citationality and iterability. For instance, debate begins with the construction of argument briefs and blocks. These sets of arguments combine the thoughts and utterances of several experts and writers and are presented in a new context and time. No matter the original intent and convictions of these authors, their ideas are now deployed in a new manner and purpose within a debate. Also, several team members and coaches work on various sets of blocks and briefs, which means that a single student might cite the ideas and beliefs of over a dozen people in his/her speech act. Additionally, debaters post the citations and list of arguments they presented on online case lists that allow other debaters to borrow and use those arguments in new and different rounds and contexts. At the end of the debate, judges compile all of the claims, warrants, and data presented in the round and after rendering a decision, likely recount the arguments to the teams they coach, which redeploy these arguments well beyond the reach of the intent and beliefs of the debaters who constructed the original arguments and briefs. Even when students’

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convictions and intentions are introduced into debate, it becomes almost immediately difficult to determine where students’ ideas begin and where the excess of meaning produced by the constant iteration of utterances stop. While students may know their personal beliefs, it is difficult for those beliefs to control and contain meaning once it has uptake. Put differently, the constant citation of ideas and beliefs always add additional meaning as more voices (e.g., a quotation from an expert, a coach’s language choices on a block) and new contexts are introduced.

Even if students attempt to remain completely authentic by avoiding reference to outside experts or their coaches or teammates by citing nothing other than genuine experience in their arguments, this performance continues to operate as citation for a few reasons. First, in its selection and redeployment of past experiences, the speech act cites prior experience and conventions to make the experiences communicable. Second, the purely authentic performance is intelligible as a debate argument only because it references some competitive debate conventions (e.g., it follows time limits, it is presented as a constructive, it contains different contentions) and the expectations of the judge. Third, once a debate ends, the students have no control over what kind of uptake their arguments have beyond the debate; anyone can use these arguments in new ways and contexts. Thus, debate operates at both levels of discourse as outlined by Austin. On one hand, debate has an expressed political purpose of persuading the judge and perhaps inspiring and convincing the other team at a perlocutionary level. On the other hand, debates also produce illocutionary effects that are determined in the uptake and circulation of arguments after and outside the debate. Both levels are performative in that they produce an effect: winning a ballot, changing an opinion, or even declaring an identity for oneself. However, what becomes very difficult to assess within a


debate is the authenticity and ethics of specific utterances.

Why does it matter that speech acts in debate operate on both levels of effect? It calls into question the common division between explicitly labeled “performance-based” arguments and more traditional debate arguments that center on the use of the federal government as the agent of change. For instance, the seemingly constantive statement, “a substantial increase of United State federal government democracy assistance to Egypt stops war” contains the performative statement, “you should affirm a substantial increase of United State federal government democracy assistance to Egypt because it stops war.” This implied performative statement can accomplish two things: (1) persuading the judge to vote in support of U.S. aid; and (2) the performative affirmation of an idea. As Culler (1981) explains, Austin “reaches a surprising conclusion. An utterance such as ‘I hereby affirm that the cat is on the mat’ seems also to possess the crucial feature of accomplishing the act (of affirming) to which it refers” (p. 17). Accordingly, speech act theory demonstrates that both critical and policy debate utterances in a debate operate performatively. If we are going to credit critically inclined debaters with the argument that we should view certain utterances as having a performative effect, it makes little sense to exclude seemingly constantive policy-centered statements because within the context of a debate, they may also operate at an illocutionary level.

Speech act theory also disrupts some contemporary assumptions about the effect of individual debate rounds. A common complaint about contemporary policy debate is that the idea that speech acts in a debate will fiat the implementation of a particular policy option is illusory and mistaken. Thus, critics of the fiat view of the role of the ballot contend that policy arguments have no particular effect or impact outside of the round. Instead, they maintain that we should evaluate the discourse

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uttered in an individual round because that discourse has illocutionary and interpellative effects on the individuals in the debate and can be cited outside of the individual debate. As my review of speech act theory suggest, these critics have it partially correct. Any utterance in single debates can have illocutionary uptake outside of a debate, particularly in an age of electronic argument lists. Additionally, both critical and traditional policy arguments can have perlocutionary effects on the judge even if they fail to circulate beyond the individual debate. However, just because an argument in a debate has the potential to be cited after a debate does not guarantee that all arguments will reach this level of effect, as there are some necessary conditions for uptake to occur. First, as Butler (1997) contends, language is excessive because it always expresses more than we intend. Particularly for performances, they are embodied, which adds even more excessive meaning to any utterance. As a result, “language is mostly agency, but not mastery or control or closure of system” (Butler, 1997, p. 8). It is impossible for a debater to claim that he/she, the other team, or the judge can master, control, stop, or intentionally direct illocutionary effects. Second, these illocutionary effects of language are not something that can be predicted or described in an immediate context. For instance, discourse located within a single debate has rhetorical effect only because it cites arguments, discourse, and knowledge produced prior to the debate. Consequently, the effect of any debate or speech act is produced somewhat both prior to and after a single debate because citationality provides force to the discourse. Indeed, from the vantage point of an individual debate, no one can accurately assess the potential illocutionary effect of any discourse; that effect depends on how the discourse is later cited in other contexts (Butler, 1997). Even if the debater’s only purpose is to persuade at a perlocutionary level, the full range of effects of the speech act are unclear past the casting of a ballot and the judge’s


comments after the debate. How that judge, the opposing team, and the audience acts as a result of being persuaded cannot be determined at the time of the utterance (Butler, 1997). Thus, the claim that the discourse of an individual debate is the only reliable effect we can discern from a debate is incorrect. The problem, though, is that little if anything that happens after the debate can be determined at the time of the speech act.

Even if the critical or traditional government-as-agent debate arguments do not reach a level of circulation or citation, this does not mean that the speech acts are any less political or performative at that time they are uttered in a debate. However, it does mean that we need different means to evaluate the argumentative effectiveness of speech acts. The aim of this essay has been to demonstrate the difficulty of using illocutionary performative effects or sincerity as governing forces to decide competitive rounds. Rather than use these indeterminable and unpredictable standards to resolve debates, competitive debate should be evaluated based on the persuasive perlocutionary force of debate speech acts. In other words, debate should be assessed on the localized effects each student’s speech act has on the judge. This is not a terribly novel idea, as debate ballots have long asked the judge to assign a win to the team that did the “better job debating” in the round. For example, judges can decide rounds based on which team did the better job persuading them on the cost-benefits of a given action (policy or critical). There is no reason why cost-benefit has to be determined solely by policy consequences; they also can be defined as the ethical, epistemological, or ontological implications of the course of action. Additionally, a judge might evaluate the debate based on which team’s arguments ring most true to or motivates him/her at the end of the debate. In this framework, students’ personal politics and identity claims still matter, but they are evaluated on a localized

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level based on perlocutionary effect rather than as an a priori decision-calculus for who gets to access arguments in the debate. While these options might seem somewhat subjective, it is far less arbitrary than attempting to determine highly uncertain illocutionary speech act effects that might occur beyond the single debate round or indeterminable authenticity of personal convictions.

The argument here is not that conviction-driven speech acts are not important, as they can be rather significant to the students as they reveal important personal life choices or preferences (e.g., gender or sexuality) and their individual politics (e.g., allegiance to a social movement or cause). The expression and use of these beliefs in debate might be important to legitimate those choices and politics and they might motivate students’ future career and life choices. The aim here is not to promote a style of debate that is completely depersonalized or abstract, but to detach perlocutionary arguments about identity, experience, and politics from a recently developed ethical imperative that the presence of a singular belief, experience, or identity is unchallengeable, stable, and the absolute decision-rule for a debate. In doing so, this detachment opens up debate to a host of arguments about the perlocutionary effects of identity, experience, and politics without foreclosing the motivational and deeply personal value that these kinds of arguments might have for students.

Evaluating debate speech acts in this way resolves the difficulty involved in distinguishing serious and non-serious speech acts in a debate. As speech act theory suggests, we cannot accurately distinguish the serious from the non-serious speech act in a debate. For instance, what prevents students from lying about their true beliefs in order to win a debate? We have no structures or even incentives to regulate the use of students’ prior beliefs in debate. At best, we can only accept their word that they are sincerely debating from their convictions, which is


not reliable. As Derrida (1988) contends, “nothing can distinguish a serious or sincere promise from the same ‘promise’ that is non-serious or insincere except for the intention which informs and animates it” (pp. 68-69). Additionally, the presence of a ballot and competitive debate conventions create an impetus for students to select, overemphasize, deemphasize, and alter parts of their sincere beliefs and experiences to make their arguments more effective. Alternatively, even if both teams believe that they are engaged in a non-competitive sincere discussion about an issue in place of a competitive debate, the need to declare a winner and loser at the end of the discussion often creates a number of complications. For instance, a rather memorable round occurred several years ago where both teams agreed to abandon the traditional debate format in order to have a sincere discussion about the problems with contemporary international relations theory. Instead of speaking switch-sides, both teams spoke their true feelings about the matter and the judge listened to both teams’ thoughts. At the end of the debate, the judge believed both teams provided an excellent discussion and in order to decide the debate, he/she flipped a coin. The losing team was extremely upset with the decision and rather than focus on the productive value of the discussion, all the attention and the consequence of the round centered on the decision calculus rather than the sharing of genuine beliefs. Consequently, competitive pressures can operate as a distraction from the value of disclosing true convictions.

If nothing in the presentation can distinguish a sincere speech act from an insincere one, there seems to be little consequence of disingenuousness. However, Massey (2006a) is concerned that insincerity can cause harm in debate. For example, he argues that because discourse shapes reality and that we impose this frame on an audience, a non-serious performance as the United

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State federal government is unethical and might damage an audience. However, how would the audience know otherwise? How am I harmed by the insincere speech of others, particularly when the opposite side of the topic is presented by the other debate team? According to speech act theory, there is no clear reason why this would jeopardize the audience. According to Butler (1997), attributing immediate harm to individual speech acts inappropriately assigns blame and harm to the speaker. Furthermore, assuming immediate harm is problematic because it closes the gap between intention and speech act, which forecloses the possibility that discourse can be re-appropriated and redeployed. As well, this perspective blames the speaker for harm when the individual’s speech cannot have that effect without a prior history that gives that discourse its force and power. For instance, the act of blaming an individual debater for evoking a harmful and gendered view of international relations (IR) theory depends on the presence of preceding arguments, history, and theories that tell us that a particular view of IR theory is dangerous. The problematic discourse is not unique or originated by the debater in question. While we can hold the individual accountable for evoking the troubling rhetoric, we cannot maintain that his/her utterance is what causes actual harm; the true source of injury is located in the historicity of the discourse (Butler, 1997).

Implications for Performance Debate

Understanding debate utterances as iterative speech acts has a number of implications for in-round debates about performances and speech acts. First, performances and speech acts cannot be assessed as more or less “correct” or filled with more or less conviction or authenticity. Because of how a performance is constructed through iteration and its prior historicity and the excessive nature of embodied performance, it is nearly impossible to assess the authenticity or sincerity of a performance.


Additionally, if winning or losing is contingent on the purported sincerity of the speech act, there seems to be no disincentive for lying or exaggerating one’s performance. For instance, when the University of Louisville first began its style of project debate that critically challenged privilege in academic debate, I judged a debate between Louisville on the affirmative against a team from my region on the negative. I did not know any of the four debaters particularly well. During the course of the debate, the negative argued that they were not privileged and indeed lived in low socio-economic conditions and should not lose because they are more privileged than the Louisville debaters. The negative team also pointed out that the Louisville team had rather expensive computers and speakers that demonstrated that they were not as economically disadvantaged as claimed in the affirmative speeches. I had no way to assess during the round the truthfulness of these claims. Later, I discovered that the one negative debater not from the Louisville team grew up in a highly affluent family in a very rich suburb. While the negative debater’s performance was clearly insincere in hindsight, nothing about the appearance or embodied speech act provides clear markers of privilege. As Derrida (1988) maintains, nothing but the unknown intentions of the speaker can distinguish the true and false performance. From a judge’s perspective, intent is never known and thus impossible to evaluate as the primary ethical duty or decision-rule for the debate.

Second, attempts to demonstrate or evaluate authenticity serve as a distraction from the larger and more important question of argumentative effectiveness. Instead of discussing how issues of identity, experience, or policy making best persuade the judge, many performance debates that establish authenticity as the key criterion for evaluating the debate fall under great scrutiny about the behavior, beliefs, and intentions of the debaters. For

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example, in the debate previously referenced, the round quickly became a question of whose life experiences and beliefs demonstrated privilege the most. Unfortunately, the speech acts in the debate did not make this clear. Instead, as the judge, I had to make rather subjective assessments with no clear evidence to support my decision. Had the debate revolved around the question of which performance was more persuasive based on the cost-benefits of having a more inclusive framework that recognized the role of privilege in debate instead of constantly switching back to the question of who had the most authentic experiences of being economically disadvantaged, it would have been easier to adjudicate. However, the issue of sincerity as the decision-rule for both what counts as evidence in the debate and the ultimate decision at the end of the round creates an unnecessary distraction and heightened inspection of issues that do not arise in other types of debates. For instance, traditional policy debates about the actions of the federal government and the consequences of policy change do not invite this kind of intense scrutiny about the potential inconsistency between the debaters’ sincere beliefs and the positions they are advocating in the debate. This problem can be corrected if students’ experiences and narratives are allowed to be used as legitimate data or evidence in the debate (and subject to the same tests of evidence as all other evidence in the debate) and we view the debate as competing orientations towards the resolution that have advantages and disadvantages that can be persuasively contested throughout the debate.

In response to the claim that debates about sincere performances are too subjective and unverifiable, some debaters contend that physical skin color and other bodily markers can provide clear signs of authenticity and experience. However, this basis for assessment is problematic. For example, mixed race, ambiguous skin tone, and a host of other factors complicate our ability to


evaluate authentic embodied performances. This argument also raises the problems of heightened scrutiny previously discussed. Additionally, this linkage between experience and the body essentializes experience and identity. For instance, assuming that experience is uncontestably a sign of authentic performance naturalizes identity and its discursive history and “locate[s] resistance outside its discursive construct and reif[ies] agency as an inherent attribute of individuals, thus decontextualizing it” (Scott, 1991, p. 777). Spivak (1996) maintains that attempts to locate and advance a stable and unquestioned genuine subaltern experience are in vain because they uncritically assume that a collectively agreed upon experience in a heterogeneous yet physically similar group is possible, natural, and non-ideological. Overall, such assumptions seem rather troubling as they weaken the underlying assumptions and progressive potential of many critical projects. Thus, evaluation of authenticity and conviction seems rather difficult and an unnecessary distraction from the larger question of argumentative effectiveness. It is worth noting again that the point of this argument is not to exclude genuine beliefs or experiences from debate. The concern here is that using purportedly sincere and stable identities and beliefs as the regulating force to determine what is ethical or who can access the ballot unintentionally draws a line between types of debate and will always invite higher levels of scrutiny from judges and produces a type of ethics that are not helpful to the debate performance.

Third, we should be cautious of claims that any and all utterances in a debate constitute a performance or speech act. While I argue earlier that any statement in a debate – be it policy or critical – has the potential to be have illocutionary effects, judges cannot assess that impact accurately within the round. For example, theorists such as Cheshier (n. d.) suggest that speech acts

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can be evaluated on how “politically productive” they are (para. 23). Also, Evans (2011a) contends that, “judges are complicit and must realize that casting their ballot one way or another has material consequences” (para. 15). However, the material and illocutionary effects of any speech act occur through citation, which happens beyond the individual debate. Consequently, judges cannot assess the effect of the act unless it has a certain uptake within the debate community. For instance, using citationality as a standard for evaluating speech acts, we can determine in hindsight that the University of Louisville’s race project had considerable discursive and material effect as it was cited by many other teams and radically changed the nature of critical and performance debate. However, this impact could not be determined inside the localized debate round.

As Butler (1997) argues, an illocutionary performative statement requires the citation of prior convention or history to give it discursive force. In other words, a statement in a debate needs a certain history and affective charge in order for it to resonate within and beyond a debate round. Thus, simply making any statement in a debate and labeling it a “speech act” is not sufficient to meet the conditions of a performative speech act. For instance, debaters on the 2011-2012 democracy assistance to the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region topic would contend that their discussion of the MENA region or democracy in general constituted an important speech act that should be evaluated equal to or greater than other arguments in the debate. While there is the potential for these claims to be true, many of these debates likely failed to site the rhetorical history or key ideographic terms that would activate the prior controversy or authority of past discussions that would make it citational and thus performative.

Fourth, contemporary speech act theory provides


new avenues for permutations or citation of performances in debates. In many performance debates, it is common to hear performance teams argue that opposing teams’ attempts to run plan/performance-inclusive counterplans (PICs), permutations, or other attempts to operate within a performative framework are insincere, inauthentic, or constitute a form of intellectual plagiarism (Zompetti, 2004). Put differently, these efforts should be rejected because they are fake or parasitic performances. However, as Derrida (1988) contends, efforts to regulate speech acts with an organizing center of intention or sincere beliefs undermine the citationality, excess, and structural play of discourse. For both Derrida (1988) and Butler (1997), this approach is flawed for two reasons. First, the attempts to govern speech acts will unavoidably fail because recirculation of discourse is inevitable. Additionally, speech acts always produce excess meanings that are beyond our sovereign control. Second, these regulative approaches provide very limited rhetorical agency as they reject the possibility of re-signification. For instance, without the possibility of citationality, harmful language cannot be re-appropriated for new cultural and political uses. Likewise, the strategic use of essentialized identities to expose the shortcomings of such representations becomes nearly impossible within this perspective of communication (Spivak, 1996). For example, productive critiques of gender and racial identities through parody would likely be excluded if sincerity and intentions regulate acceptable performances. Additionally, if discourse is limited in agency due to intentions and sincerity, then it likely has little power to change reality. Simply put, one cannot simultaneously posit a strong (e.g., discourse changes reality) and weak (e.g., discourse is severely constrained by prior beliefs and intent) theory of discursive agency.

While performance teams might find the prospect of having their opponents strategically capturing their

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speech acts unfair, there seems to be greater disadvantages associated with the attempts to strictly police insincere performances. However, this does not mean that these teams are left with no defense against permutations, PICs, or other capture strategies. Indeed, this review of speech act theory suggests that the opposition’s citation of the speech act must have some discursive effect or force. While I argue that effect is rather difficult to assess within a single debate round, Salih and Butler (2004) provide a solution to this problem. In discussing the progressive potential of strategic essentialism, Salih and Butler (2004) argue that re-signification of representations and terms can operate as sites for productive contestations over the meaning and exclusiveness of these identities and discourse. As a result, the debate about whether or not permutations or PICs of a performance can move away from questions of conviction and intent and instead focus on argumentative effectiveness, which could examine the exclusions and consequences created by the differences that remain between the performance team and their opponents’ orientations. Put rather simply, the debate returns to a question of net-benefits rather than one of mutual exclusivity regulated by true beliefs. Thus, the desire to exclude permutations and PICs solely because they are insincere should be rejected if performance teams want to maintain the strong theory of discursive agency that they need in order to justify the impact of their arguments.

Implications for SSD Theory

Understanding debate utterances as citational illocutionary performance also has a number of implications for the enduring debate about SSD. First, speech act theory calls into question the assumption that SSD is ethically harmful because it produces a gap between public utterances and students’ convictions. Not only is this gap benign, it has the advantage of allowing for


strategic redeployment of representations and counter-speech. However, one problem raised by Greene and Hicks (2005) not discussed up to the point is their concern that SSD constitutes a theory of deliberative democracy through a “post-conventional morality – one capable of making moral judgments based on reason and not authority or personal conviction” (p. 120). Yet, this argument presumes a model of citizenship and civic engagement that is rapidly changing in a Web 2.0 environment. For instance, Bennett, Wells, and Frellon (2011) note that since the Progressive Era, a Dutiful Citizenship (DC) model of civic engagement, one in which communication occurs through one-way channels dominated by high authority sources, has governed American media and politics. Additionally, the DC model of civic life posits that citizens engage “in public life out of a sense of personal duty” (Bennett et al., 2011, p. 838). However, with the rise of internet technologies and Web 2.0 user-created content, we are witnessing a shifting civic engagement model that is giving rise to an Actualization Citizenship (AC) in which young citizens are no longer motivated by conviction and a moral personal duty, but, instead, by “self-actualization through social expression” (Bennett et al., 2011, p. 840). In this model, citizens participate in cause-oriented politics driven by individual action and consumer choices.

The AC model of citizenship operates in a media environment that no longer privileges the great orator or authoritative news source. Rather, user created media and the sharing or citation of information creates a sense of engagement and agency (Bennett et al., 2011; Colbert, 2011). Consequently, the author and his/her intentions matter far less within this environment. As Colbert (2011) suggests, “Web 2.0 is the quintessence of post-Structuralist ideology” (para. 17). In particular, Colbert (2011) contends that, “On the web, roles of author and reader, consumer and producer, are not fixed or permanent. User-

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created sites allow the entire online public (the readers) to access work while the producers (the authors) remain completely anonymous” (para. 2). Thus, if the source is decentered in the emerging public sphere, there seems to be less need for us to train students and future citizens in communication and civic engagement practices like conviction-driven debate when they seem far less important in today’s public sphere. There seems to be little harm on democratic culture created by SSD. Indeed, the developing model of AC citizenship would suggest that our citational understanding of speech acts may be a more appropriate model for debate and civic engagement than one strictly regulated by personal convictions or contemporary SSD ethics.

Second, Greene and Hicks’ (2005) concern about the gap created between an embodied speech act and beliefs in the promotion of SSD appears less worrisome from a Derridian perspective. Initially, the gap criticized by Greene and Hicks is an inevitable product of any speech act. A certain distance always exists between an act and speaker’s intentions and convictions. We cannot maintain mastery over our speech acts precisely because they are embodied; as such, our performance is always in excess of our intentions. Closure of this gap is impossible in public communication. Moreover, attempts to artificially close this gap foreclose re-appropriation of utterances and discourse. Consequently, anytime we misspeak, argue from a poorly understood assumption, or make other mistakes, we would be held accountable for those mistakes because there is a one-to-one relationship between our public utterances and our sincere beliefs. As a result, closure of the conviction-speech act gap greatly limits discursive agency and fails to properly account for the unwieldy nature of public speech acts.

However, both deconstruction and AC citizenship perspectives suggest that either extreme – SSD as abstract


and depersonalized technocratic information exchange and SSD as highly personalized and conviction-driven – are problematic because both perspectives of SSD assume that convictions or speech acts are stable. For instance, many performance debaters contend that their convictions and the meaning of their experiences are formed and stable prior to communication. These attempts to regulate competitive debate through stable identities and beliefs are problematic. In comparison, supporters of fiat-based policy debate assume that convictions change and are tested through debate. However, these proponents often assume that the meaning of a resolution is always stable and predictable across a number of contexts, which allows for an anticipated switching of sides on the resolution each debate. However, one of the lessons of deconstructive speech act theory is that the meaning of a text is always already shifting and unstable, as texts do not have inherent and secured meaning (Derrida, 1988). As a result, attempts to police and dismiss performance-style debating or regulate access to arguments based on sincerity depend on an inaccurate view of communication and the emerging political sphere. In response, we need a new definition of SSD that recognizes the value of deconstructive speech act theory for both performance- and traditional policy-styles of debate.

Redefining SSD

We should not define switch-side debate in reaction to fears about the conservative (e.g., “acting in support of communist China makes one a communist”) or liberal (e.g., “roleplaying as the state is imperialist”) ideological indoctrination of students and the ethics of those pedagogical choices. These concerns misunderstand the inherent and ontological instability or play or polysemy contained in all communication and its effects (Pada, 2009). Rather than viewing the resolution as defining and stabilizing the inherent meaning of a resolution and clearly

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demarcating each side of that statement, we should view the resolution as an artifact that has unstable and contestable meaning. The instability of the resolution as an artifact is inevitable as different teams, judges, tournaments, and documents deploy the resolution in different contexts in many different ways. Even when exact meaning is policed through topicality, no single topicality debate ever plays out the same way, thus ensuring variation and difference through citation.

In this perspective, SSD does not have to be at odds with performative speech acts. Instead, SSD should be defined as switching sides on an orientation or perspective towards a set of words that operate as an unfixed resolutional text. These orientations would exist on a continuum with many ways to approach the resolution. One of those orientations could be to read for the presence of framers’ intention located in the syntax and arrangement of the resolution’s terms as a “partial, if not, a total glimpse of the author’s intentions” (Pada, 2009, p. 87). This perspective would likely best serve traditional federal government-centered policy debate as it provides a source of predictability found in an unstable resolution. On the other end of the continuum, affirmatives might approach the resolution as a debate about identities and experiences that are both included and excluded by the text. These debates should not be determined on a strict ethical system defined by the authenticity or sincerity of beliefs or performances, but instead on the perlocutionary effects that the speech acts have. This would best preserve a space for performance-style debate while allowing for negative arguments like counterplans and disadvantages.

Maintaining that the resolution is an unstable artifact does not default us into a nihilistic situation without stable communication or debate (Pada, 2009). According to Derrida (1988), the ontological possibility of play and instability does not mean that communication and a semi-


stable resolution is impossible. As Pada (2009) explains, play always “implies a possibility and not an absolute condition of mis-communication….Différance does not mark the end of communication, rather, for Derrida, it opens new possibilities that are latent behind the text” (pp. 82-83). Thus, debate can begin with grammar and other cues for intent and meaning of the resolution, but there must always be room for a critique of that reading’s exclusions and consequences. This redefinition of switch-side debate allows a great deal of space for both traditional policy and conviction and performance-style debaters to operate. Additionally, it acknowledges the ontological instability of speech acts and their illocutionary effects, which opens up a number of possibilities for both policy and performance-styles of debate.

Conclusion

Given the unstable and citational structure of contemporary communication networks and competitive debate, regulating debate through strict ethical structures like conviction, experience, and certain resolutional intent seems unworkable and problematic. Even if students know their true beliefs prior to rather than through debate, the unintended and excessive meaning produced by the embodied speech act, the presence of multiple authors of debate arguments, and the risk of the fake performance makes it very difficult for judges to assess true convictions. Likewise, given the latent presence of instability and polysemy in any utterance or text, the idea that debate can be properly governed through a strict adherence to a resolutional utterance is difficult to defend. A redefinition of performance and SSD that is informed by deconstructive speech act theory provides a better balance that best reflects how communication and contemporary politics operate.

Yet, in the age of competitive debate that increasingly

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favors rapidly technical exchanges of information rather than public speech and clever strategic tricks over topic content, it is all too easy for outside observers to make reactionary calls to restore the state of argumentative pedagogy to an earlier state that celebrates the singular orator speaking well on a stable topic and full of conviction.1 However, this model of communication and civic engagement appears to be increasingly displaced by communication interconnectedness and the declining importance of source authority. While conviction still matters to students and should not be discouraged as a motivation to present certain arguments, genuine feelings and intent are very difficult to communicate and present in a citational communication world. The concerns raised in the debates about student convictions in performance debate and SSD as harmful to students and unethical seem misplaced. Worse, these reactionary calls to reestablish student convictions as the governing center of competitive debate or the complete dismissal of performance-style arguments posit a communication and political engagement model that is archaic and offers limited discursive agency to students’ speech acts.

Does this mean that current academic debate practices and pedagogy needs no reform in order to meet the needs and challenges created by an increasingly interconnected and technical public sphere? Certainly not. A Derridian account of speech acts maintains that discursive agency is located in the iteration of information and meaning. Unfortunately, current academic debate does not do nearly enough to offer the vast amount of arguments and research produced during a season to outside communities that would benefit from the information. Recent technological advances make it possible for competitive debate speech acts to effect public policy discussions outside of the context of the debate tournament. For instance, Goodnight and Mitchell (2008) and Woods et al. (2006) contend that


academic debate should create a type of Digital Debate Archive (DDA) that catalogs online all the briefs, citations, and flows of a debate season. Through various online statistical measures, the DDA could indicate the most frequently cited material and a host of other valuable open source information for outside scholars and public policy advocates. In these efforts, convictions likely matter a great deal, as students’ beliefs and personal politics are what drive them to present thoroughly developed arguments on a frequent basis that become catalogued in the archive. Additionally, personal interest and convictions will bring students and outside activists and scholars to the archive. In implementing these ideas, competitive debate can better actualize a system of communication that is more in line with a model of communication advocated throughout this essay.

Endnote

1. For instance, see Hollihan’s (2011) keynote address to the 17th National Communication Association and the American Forensic Association’s Biennial Conference on Argument.

References

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Alfino, M. (1991). Another look at the Derrida-Searle

40 Young

debate. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 24, 143-152.

Althusser, L. (2001). Lenin and philosophy and other essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words (2nd ed.). J. O. Urmson & M. Sbisà (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Bennett, W. L., Wells, C., & Freelon, D. (2011). Communicating civic engagement: Contrasting models of citizenship in the youth web sphere. Journal of Communication, 61, 835–856.

Bérubé, M. (2004, Oct. 9). Jacques Derrida, requiescat in pace, and may his work trouble us all. Retrieved May 20, 2012 at http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/comments/483/

Bleiker, R. (2000). Popular dissent, human agency and global politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Brontsema, R. (2012). A queer revolution: Reconceptualizing the debate over linguistic reclamation. The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art website. Retrieved May 22, 2012 from http://www.pica.org/himages/PRESS/2012/04_Symposium/A%20Queer%20Revolution%20BRONTSE.pdf

Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “sex.” New York: Routledge.

Butler, J. (1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. New York: Routledge.

Cheshier, D. (n d.). Debating performance. Understanding kritiks. Retrieved March 3, 2012 from http://www.


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Colbert, Z. (2012, March/April). Death of the author and the web identity crisis. Philosophy Now. Retrieved May 13, 2012 from http://www.philosophynow.org/issues/66/Death_of_the_Author_and_the_web_identity_crisis

Cripe, N. M. (1957). Debating both dies in tournaments is ethical. The Speech Teacher, 6, 209-212.

Culler, J. (1981). Convention and meaning: Derrida and Austin. New Literary History, 13, 15-30.

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Derrida, J. (1988). Limited Inc a b c… In Gerald Graff (Ed.), Limited inc (pp. 29-110). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

English, E., Llano, S., Mitchell, G. R., Morrison, C. E., Rief, J., & Woods, C. (2007). Debate as a weapon of mass destruction. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 4, 221-225.

Evans, R. (2011a). Diversity in debate revisited. CEDA debate forums. Retrieved March 3, 2012 from http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?topic=2345.0

Evans, R. (2011b). Re: Diversity in debate revisited. CEDA debate forums. Retrieved March 3, 2012 from http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?topic=2345.msg4365#msg4365

Galloway, R. (2007). Dinner and conversation at the argumentative table: Re-conceptualizing debate as an argumentative dialogue. Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, 28, 1-19.

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42 Young

digital age. Argumentation and Advocacy, 45, 80-97.

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Hollihan, T. A. (2011). Democratic argument in the digital age. In R. C. Rowland (Ed.), Reasoned argument and social change: Selected papers from the 17th biennial conference on argumentation (pp. 5-24). Washington, DC: National Communication Association.

Klopf, D. W., & McCroskey, J. C. (1964). Debating both sides ethical: Controversy pau! The Central States Speech Journal, 15, 36-39. Retrieved May 10, 2012 from http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/publications/5.htm

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Stocker, B. (2006). Routledge philosophy guidebook to Derrida on deconstruction. New York: Routledge.

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44 Young

from http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/Rostrum/0309_065_068.pdf

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Woods, S. (2003). Changing the game? Embracing the advocacy standard. Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, 24, 85-99.

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Kelly M. Young (Ph.D., Wayne State University) is an assistant professor of Communication and Director of Forensics at Wayne State University. Correspondence should be addressed to Kelly M. Young at [email protected].


A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE 2011 ENGLIGH LANGUAGE CANADIAN PRIME

MINISTER DEBATEWilliam L. Benoit, Ohio University

In March of 2011, Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Ste-phen Harper lost a vote of no confidence in Parliament, which triggered an election in May and two debates in April. Three challengers also participated in the debates: Michael Ignati-eff (Liberal), Jack Layton (New Democratic Party), and Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Quebecois). This study applied the Func-tional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to the English language debate. Attacks and acclaims (which occurred at about the same frequency) were more common than defens-es. However, incumbent Prime Minister Harper acclaimed more than he attacked and he acclaimed more frequently than the three challengers. The challengers attacked more than they acclaimed and attacked more often than the incum-bent. This contrast was particularly acute when the candi-dates discussed past deeds (record in office). Each of the four candidates discussed Harper’s record more than any other candidate’s record and, of course, Harper acclaimed when he discussed his record, whereas the challengers attacked when discussing Harper’s record. These four candidates discussed policy more than character. When discussing general goals and ideals, they acclaimed more than they attacked. These results are compared with studies of political leaders’ debates in other countries and elections.

Introduction

Debates are a very important campaign message form in democratic governments. The American presidential campaign of 2012, for example, featured debates which were the talk of the campaign. Debates have several key advantages over other message forms. First, debates present information to voters: televised debates are much longer than some messages forms, such as TV spots. This

46 Benoit

means that they offer candidates a greater opportunity to communicate themselves and their policies to voters and to distinguish themselves from their opponents. Second, the format of debates, with voters hearing alternatively from the leading candidates, allows voters to directly compare the candidates’ issue stands and character. Third, rules for debates usually prohibit candidates from bringing notes into the debates; this means that candidates must present information extemporaneously, and at times, they must provide impromptu answers to unexpected questions or comments from opponents. Of course, candidates usually prepare extensively for their debates; still, debate viewers may receive a more candid view of each candidate than they could from highly scripted message forms such as stump speeches or TV spots (Schrott, 1990). Debates also generate a great deal of media attention and political discussion among many voters concerning the candidates and their policies, which broadens their potential influence. Candidates themselves can benefit from the free media exposure provided by televised debates.

Televised political campaign debates have effects on viewers, another reason for studying this message form. Benoit, Hansen, and Verser (2003) used meta-analysis to determine that watching American presidential debates increased issue knowledge, influenced perceptions of the candidates’ character, and changed vote choice (of course, not every viewer’s knowledge is increased or attitudes changed, but the observed effects are significant). Evidence also indicates effects from viewing debates in other countries. Lanoue (1991) argued that the 1984 Canadian leadership debates influenced the voting behavior of viewers. Blais and Boyer (1996) reported that the Canadian debates in 1988 altered vote choice and voters’ perceptions. Maier and Faas (2003) wrote that the 2002 German debates had effects on candidates’ images. Blais, Gidengil, Nadeau, and Nevitte (2003) concluded that the


2003 Canadian debates were “critical in the Conservative surge” (p. 49). Blais and Perrella (2008) documented effects from both Canadian and American debates. Debates can also increase feelings of political efficacy and promote civic engagement among voters (Chaffee, 1978). Because political election debates tend to attract large audiences – for example, half of eligible Canadian voters watched the 1979 debate (LeDuc & Price, 1985), 59% watched the Israeli debate in 1996 (Blum-Kulka & Liebes, 2000), and 65% watched one of the German chancellor debates in 2002 (Faas & Maier, 2004) – these encounters have a tremendous potential to inform and influence voters.

Political leaders’ debates in countries other than the U.S. are a comparatively understudied phenomenon (e.g., books on American presidential campaign debates include Hellweg, Pfau, & Brydon, 1992; Jamieson & Birdsell, 1988; Kraus, 1962; see Louden, 2011) and McKinney and Carlin (2004) note that more research in this area is necessary. Benoit’s (2007) Functional Theory, which argues that candidates for elective office use three functions (acclaims or positive statements, attacks or criticisms of opponents, and defenses or refutations of attacks) on two topics (policy or issues, character or personality) to court voters, has been applied to every American general election presidential debate and to many American presidential primary debates. This research revealed that acclaims tend to be more common than attacks, which are in turn more frequent than defenses. Further, incumbents in general election debates are prone to acclaim more and attack less than challengers, and particularly so when the candidates discuss past deeds or record in office (which enable retrospective voting; see Benoit, 2006). Presidential candidates in United States debates focus more on policy (i.e., problems amenable to governmental action and proposals for governmental action) than character (i.e., personality and traits of candidates; Benoit,

48 Benoit

2007).

This theory has also been extended to political leaders’ debates in other countries: Australia and Canada (Benoit & Henson, 2007), France and South Korea (Choi & Benoit, 2009), Israel (Benoit & Sheafer, 2006), Taiwan (Benoit, Wen, & Yu, 2007), and the Ukraine (Benoit & Klyukovski, 2006). Results of these studies are generally consistent with analyses of American political debates: acclaims outnumbered attacks, which in turn were more common than defenses in most of these debates. Only the Ukraine debates had more attacks than acclaims (this campaign was particularly vitriolic: the initial votes were declared invalid due to vote fraud and one candidate accused the other of poisoning him). Incumbents acclaimed more and attacked less than challengers in these countries (except South Korea, which limits presidents to a single term and does not have a vice president, so there is no true incumbent). Some characteristics of political leaders’ debates cross borders.

We were unable to locate research on the functions and topics of the 2011 Canadian debates. Thus, one rationale for this study is to rectify a gap in the literature. Furthermore, little research has studied political leaders’ debates in countries with parliamentary systems of government. Elections in the United States and some other countries use direct election (i.e., citizens vote for the candidate of their choice). In the U.S., for example, one need not vote for Republican candidates for the House or Senate in order to elect the Republican candidate for president. However, in a parliamentary system, the people vote for a legislative representative and not a prime minister or chancellor; a member of the majority party (or coalition of parties) becomes prime minister or chancellor. It is possible that the fact that citizens in such governmental systems cannot vote directly for their leaders could alter the messages produced in such campaigns. This study


applies Functional Theory to political leaders’ debates in a parliamentary system, Canada.

Background

Elections were required when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority (coalition) government lost a no confidence vote in Parliament in March 2011. The Canadian Parliament declared the government to be in contempt of Parliament (Galloway, 2011). James (2011) reported that “Harper’s opponents accused him and other officials of withholding vital information about various programs from Parliament” (para. 8). Harper responded by saying that his priority was to improve Canada’s economy, unlike the opposition parties: “Unfortunately Mr. Ignatieff [Conservative] and his coalition partners in the NDP [New Democratic Party] and Bloc Quebecois made abundantly clear that they had already decided they wanted an election instead” (Galloway, 2011, para. 9). Although this was not the first time a Canadian government had received a vote of no-confidence (James, 2011), it was the first time a government had been held to be in contempt of Parliament (Galloway, 2011). The decision to vote no confidence and trigger an election was politically risky because “opinion polls indicate[d] his party is likely to win a plurality of votes, allowing it to form another minority government” (James, 2011, para. 4). Two debates were held in April of 2011: one in English and one in French. Elections were held on May 2, 2011. This study applies the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse (Benoit, 2007) to the English debate.

Theoretical Framework

The Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse (Benoit, 2007) explains that candidates seek to appear preferable to other candidates in order to win elections. Three types (functions) of messages promote the impression that a candidate is preferable to

50 Benoit

opponents: acclaims, attacks, and defenses. Acclaims are positive statements about the qualities, accomplishments, or desirable proposals of a candidate. Attacks identify weaknesses or limitations of an opponent (or an opponent’s political party). Defenses are statements that attempt to refute an attack made against a candidate. These three functions combine in what can be thought of an informal form of cost-benefit analysis; note, though, that Functional Theory does not claim voters assign numerical values to acclaims, attacks, or defenses, or that they combine them mathematically: acclaims tend to increase a candidate’s perceived benefits, attacks tend to reduce an opponent’s apparent benefits, and defenses can reduce a candidate’s alleged costs. Note too that every voter cannot be expected to interpret a candidate’s statement in the same way (Jarman, 2005). However, Reinemann and Maurer (2005) found that use of acclaims in German political leaders’ debates generated general support in the audience, whereas attacks, statements of fact, and political plans tended to polarize the audience.

Functional Theory also holds that political candidates can discuss two topics as they work to persuade voters of their preferability to other candidates: policy and character. Policy utterances, which are often called “issues,” concern problems amenable to governmental actions and proposals for such actions; character comments address the qualifications and personalities of the candidates. Each of these topics is further divided into three components. When addressing policy, political candidates can acclaim or attack in three areas: past deeds, future plans, or general goals. Past deeds refer to the governmental actions taken by the candidate (record in office). Future plans are policies that the candidate will pursue if elected or re-elected such as specific campaign promises. Future plans propose the means to accomplish a desirable end. General goals are less specific than future


plans and do not contain information about the candidates’ specific proposals: stressing ends rather than means (future plans and general goals both relate to prospective voting; Benoit, 2006).

Character, frequently referred to as “image,” includes three categories: personal qualities, leadership ability, and ideals. Personal qualities are characteristics of candidates such as honesty, courage, and decency. Leadership ability refers to the candidates’ abilities to administer the government. Often, statements concerning leadership relate to the candidates’ experience in elective office. Those who have not served in such offices sometimes use other managerial experiences (e.g., success in business) to acclaim leadership ability. Ideals represent the candidates’ basic principles or values.

Based on Functional Theory and research on political leaders’ debates in other countries (Benoit, 2007), we test six hypotheses. Initially, Functional Theory explains that acclaims have no drawbacks, whereas attacks have a single drawback: voters say they dislike mudslinging, which could result in a backlash against a candidate airing attacks in an ad (Merritt, 1984; Stewart, 1975). Defenses, in contrast, have three potential limitations. The candidate must identify an attack to refute it, which could inform or remind some voters of a potential liability of the defending candidate. Second, attacks usually occur on a candidate’s weak points, which means a defense usually takes a candidate “off message.” Finally, the defensive posture is reactive rather than proactive, which could be perceived unfavorably by voters. Accordingly, Functional Theory predicts that:

H1: Candidates use acclaims more frequently than attacks; defenses occur least often.

Functional Theory argues that candidates have reasons to acclaim more than attack (and to attack more

52 Benoit

than they defend); it does not assert that candidate never attack more than they acclaim. In fact, as noted below, challengers are prone to attack more than incumbents and so in some cases challengers could attack more than they acclaim.

Although some think that candidates are role models (foregrounding character), political leaders implement policy (and they may propose policy to legislatures as well). Prime ministers have important policy responsibilities, so Functional Theory would predict that:

H2: Candidates discuss policy more often than character.

Incumbent candidates running for re-election have an important resource that is rarely available for challengers: a record of service in the office sought. Challengers often have service in other governmental offices, but it is not the same as experience as president, chancellor, or prime minister. For example, in the United States in 2004, John Kerry had served as a Senator. However, Senators do not implement the bills they introduce and pass; the Senate ratifies treaties and confirms appointments of ambassadors, but Senators do not have the same kinds of foreign policy experience that incumbent presidents have. Similarly, challengers may have experience as state governors, as was the case, for example, with George W. Bush in 2000, but again that is not quite the same as experience in the Oval Office. Functional Theory argues that incumbents and challengers both engage in acclaims and attacks, but that incumbents are more likely to acclaim, and less likely to attack, than challengers. This relationship is particularly important when they discuss their records in office: incumbents are more likely to acclaim their own record, whereas challengers are prone to attack the incumbent’s record. Hence, we offer two predictions:


H3: Incumbent candidates use acclaims more, and attacks less, than challengers.

H4: Incumbent candidates use past deeds more for acclaims, and less for attacks, than challengers.

The final two predictions concern a form of policy (general goals) and of character (ideals). Candidates generally find it easier to acclaim than to attack using these utterances. Who opposes strengthening national defense (a general goal) or equality (an ideal)?

H5: Candidates use general goals more frequently to acclaim than to attack.

H6: Candidates use ideals used more frequently to acclaim than to attack.

Tests of these hypotheses from an analysis of a Canadian Prime Minister debate in the 2010 election will enhance our understanding of the nature of televised campaign debates.

Method

This study content analyzed the English language Canadian PM debate of 2011 (downloaded from the Internet) employing the procedures developed for testing the Functional Theory. To ensure comparability of data in this replication, we followed the same procedures developed for conducting a Functional Theory analysis of other political leaders’ debates (e.g., Benoit, 2007; Benoit & Henson, 2007; Benoit & Klyukovski, 2006; Benoit & Sheafer, 2006; Benoit et al., 2007).

Functional Theory unitizes the texts of campaign messages into themes, the coding unit for this study. Themes are complete ideas, claims, or arguments; a single theme can vary in length from one phrase to an entire paragraph. The coders first identified themes present in each of the debates. Then, each theme was categorized

54 Benoit

by function: acclaim, attack, or defense. Next, coders categorized the topic of each theme as policy or character. The coders next identified the form of policy or character for each theme. Finally, the target of each attack was identified (some attacks did not have a clear target; some comments lamented existing problems without explicitly assigning blame).

Two coders analyzed the debate, which consisted of 631 coding units. Coder training consisted of four steps: (1) they read and discussed three earlier articles using Functional Theory; (2) they read and discussed the codebook; (3) they practiced coding on similar texts (not the debate analyzed here); and (4) the results of the practice training were discussed. Training occurred over a week; approximately four hours were devoted to training. Inter-coder reliability was calculated with Cohen’s (1960) kappa. About 10% of the transcripts; including sections from all three debates, were used to calculate inter-coder reliability and were part of the final coded sample. Kappa was .89 for functions, .86 for topics, .91 for forms of policy, and .87 for forms of character. Landis and Koch (1977) indicate that kappas of .81 or higher reflect almost perfect agreement between coders, so these data have good reliability.

Results

Hypothesis one addressed the functions of the candidates’ utterances. These candidates acclaimed (46%) and attacked (45%) at about the same rate; these functions were more common than defenses (9%). Harper illustrated acclaims when he declared in the debate that

We’re keeping taxes down to create jobs and that is working. Canada’s job creation is far superior to virtually any other country.... We’re making investments in training to make sure in our educational institutions to make sure Canadians can participate in


that economy in the future. (Global News, 2011)

Creating jobs and improving education are praiseworthy actions. An illustration of an attack can be found in Layton’s statement: “There’s no investments now to get five million Canadians that don’t have family medicine, we are not getting the investments in home care, long-term care, and we’re not seeing the program to get our pharmaceutical prices down” (Global News, 2011). Shortcomings in health care would likely be seen as undesirable by the audience, making this an attack. Duceppe attacked Harper for “not helping people in the forestry sector” (Global News, 2011). Harper replied that “The reality is quite different.... We have superior job creation in this country, in terms of our support for the automobile and forestry sectors” (Global News, 2011). Harper rejects this attack as untrue (“the reality is quite different”) and he argues that in fact he has created jobs in forestry. These proportions were significantly different (χ2 [df = 2] = 174.48, p < .001); however, there is no significant difference between the frequency of attacks and acclaims (the incumbent acclaimed more than he attacked, but none of the challengers did so). H1 was not confirmed in these data (see Table 1).

The second prediction anticipated that these candidates discussed policy more than character. These candidates discussed policy (70%) more than character (30%) in these debates. For instance, Harper illustrated a policy utterance when he said that “We cut taxes for businesses big and small several years ago and the New Democratic Party voted against all of those tax reductions” (Global News, 2011). Clearly, taxation is a policy topic. On the other hand, Ignatieff attacked the Prime Minister for not being truthful: “Canadians know exactly why we’re having an election, Mr. Harper; we’re having an election because you didn’t tell Parliament the truth” (Global News, 2011). A lack of honesty indicates a blameworthy character.

56 Benoit

Tabl

e 1

Func

tions

of 2

011

Cana

dian

Eng

lish

Lang

uage

Pri

me

Min

iste

r Deb

ate

A

ccla

ims

At

tack

s D

efen

ses

Har

per (

Incu

mbe

nt)

144

(60%

)

55 (2

3%)

42

(17%

) I

gnat

ieff

68 (4

1%)

91

(55%

)

7 (4

%)

Lay

ton

52 (3

6%)

89

(61%

)

4 (3

%)

Duc

eppe

29

(37%

)

49 (6

2%)

1

(1%

)Ch

alle

nger

s

149

(38%

) 2

29 (5

8%)

12

(3%

)To

tal

293

(46%

) 2

84 (4

5%)

54

(9%

)

Au

stra

lia (2

007)

1

61 (4

9%)

141

(43%

) 2

8 (9

%)

Cana

da (2

006)

8

82 (6

9%)

323

(25%

) 6

5 (5

%)

Isra

el (1

984-

1999

)

1

65 (5

0%)

124

(38%

) 3

8 (1

2%)

Taiw

an (2

004)

3

20 (4

9%)

303

(46%

) 3

5 (5

%)

Ukra

ine

(200

4)

256

(43%

) 2

90 (4

8%)

52

(9%

)Un

ited

Stat

es (1

960,

197

6-20

08)

4800

(57%

) 29

58 (3

5%)

641

(8%

)

Not

e. R

ows m

ay n

ot to

tal 1

00%

due

to ro

undi

ng; o

ther

dat

a re

port

ed h

ere

and

in T

able

s 2, 3

, and

4 a

re fr

om p

revi

-ou

s res

earc

h: A

ustr

alia

200

7 an

d Ca

nada

200

6 (B

enoi

t & H

enso

n, 2

007)

; Isr

ael (

Beno

it &

She

afer

, 200

6); T

aiw

an

(Ben

oit e

t al.,

200

7); t

he U

krai

ne (B

enoi

t & K

lyuk

ovsk

i, 20

06);

Unite

d St

ates

(Ben

oit,

2007

; Rill

& B

enoi

t 200

9).


Statistical analysis confirms that these differences are significant (χ2 [df = 1] = 99.69, p < .001), confirming the second hypothesis. These data are displayed in Table 2.

Table 2

Topics of the 2011 Canadian English Language Prime Minister Debate

Policy CharacterHarper (Incumbent) 156 (78%) 43 (22%) Ignatieff 98 (62%) 61 (38%) Layton 98 (70%) 43 (30%) Duceppe 55 (71%) 23 (29%)Challengers 251 (66%) 127 (34%)Total 407 (70%) 170 (30%)

Australia 201 (67%) 101 (33%)Canada 715 (59%) 490 (41%)Israeli 222 (77%) 67 (23%)Taiwan 372 (60%) 251 (40%)Ukraine 333 (61%) 2139 (39%)United States 5180 (74%) 1828 (26%)

The third and fourth hypotheses contrasted incumbents and challengers. Harper, the incumbent, acclaimed more than he attacked (60% to 23%) whereas challengers attacked more than they acclaimed (58% to 38%). A chi-square test reveals that these differences are significant (χ2 [df =2] = 93.38, p < .001, V = .38). This confirms hypothesis three. This contrast was particularly sharp when the four candidates discussed past deeds or record in office. The incumbent acclaimed more than he attacked when discussing past deeds (87% to 13%); the challengers attacked on past deeds more than they

58 Benoit

Tabl

e 3

Func

tions

and

Incu

mbe

ncy

in 2

011

Cana

dian

Eng

lish

Lang

uage

Pri

me

Min

iste

r Deb

ate

Accl

aim

s At

tack

s De

fens

es

Har

per (

Incu

mbe

nt)

144

(60%

) 5

5 (2

3%)

42 (1

7%)

Ign

atie

ff

6

8 (4

1%)

91

(55%

) 7

(4%

) L

ayto

n

5

2 (3

6%)

89

(61%

) 4

(3%

) D

ucep

pe

2

9 (3

7%)

49

(62%

) 1

(1%

)Ch

alle

nger

s

149

(38%

) 22

9 (5

8%)

12 (3

%)

Tota

l

29

3 (4

6%)

284

(45%

) 54

(9%

)


Tabl

e 3,

cont

inue

d

Func

tions

and

Incu

mbe

ncy

in 2

011

Cana

dian

Eng

lish

Lang

uage

Pri

me

Min

iste

r Deb

ate

Accl

aim

s At

tack

s De

fens

es

Aust

ralia

Incu

mbe

nt

84 (5

6%)

48 (3

2%)

17 (1

1%)

Ch

alle

nger

77 (4

2%)

93 (5

1%)

12 (7

%)

Cana

da 2

006

Incu

mbe

nt

257

(75%

) 59

(17%

) 25

(7%

)

Chal

leng

ers

62

5 (6

7%)

264

(28%

) 40

(4%

)Is

rael

Incu

mbe

nts

89

(55%

) 47

(29%

) 25

(16%

)

Chal

leng

ers

76

(46%

) 77

(46%

) 13

(8%

)Ta

iwan

Incu

mbe

nt

183

(54%

) 13

1 (3

9%)

25 (7

%)

Ch

alle

nger

137

(43%

) 17

2 (5

4%)

10 (3

%)

Ukra

ine

Incu

mbe

nt

141

(54%

) 86

(33%

) 33

(13%

)

Chal

leng

er

11

5 (3

4%)

204

(60%

) 19

(6%

)Un

ited

Stat

es In

cum

bent

s 24

58 (6

3%)

1031

(26%

) 40

5 (1

0%)

Ch

alle

nger

s

2342

(51%

) 19

27 (4

2%)

296

(6%

)

Not

e. R

ows m

ay n

ot to

tal 1

00%

due

to ro

undi

ng. B

olde

d va

lues

hig

hlig

ht im

port

ant c

ontr

asts

.

60 Benoit

Table 4

Functions of Past Deeds and Incumbency in 2011 Cana-dian English Language Prime Minister Debate Acclaims AttacksHarper (Incumbent) 48 (87%) 7 (13%) Ignatieff 0 (%) 34 (100%) Layton 3 (7%) 42 (93%) Duceppe 3 (14%) 18 (86%)Challengers 6 (6%) 94 (94%) Australia Incumbent 29 (78%) 8 (22%) Challenger 2 (5%) 36 (95%)Canada 2006 Incumbent 37 (84%) 7 (16%) Challengers 49 (32%) 105 (68%)Israel Incumbents 36 (72%) 14 (28%) Challengers 18 (31%) 41 (69%)Taiwan Incumbent 49 (67%) 24 (33%) Challenger 16 (19%) 68 (81%)Ukraine Incumbent 43 (57%) 33 (43%) Challenger 6 (5%) 122 (95%)United States Incumbents 779 (69%) 362 (31%) Challengers 242 (17%) 1153 (83%)

Note. Rows may not total 100% due to rounding. Bolded values highlight important contrasts.


Tabl

e 5

Form

s of P

olic

y in

201

1 Ca

nadi

an E

nglis

h La

ngua

ge P

rim

e M

inis

ter D

ebat

e

Pa

st D

eeds

Fu

ture

Pla

ns

Gen

eral

Goa

ls

Ac

clai

ms

Atta

cks

Accl

aim

s At

tack

s Ac

clai

ms

Atta

cks

Incu

mbe

nt

4

8

7

5

4

6

9

23

Chal

leng

ers

6

94

4

6

104

37

Tota

l

5

4

102

9

10

17

3

60

Tabl

e 6

Form

s of C

hara

cter

in 2

011

Cana

dian

Eng

lish

Lang

uage

Pri

me

Min

iste

r Deb

ate

P

erso

nal Q

ualit

ies

Lead

ersh

ip A

bilit

y

I

deal

s

Ac

clai

ms

Atta

cks

Accl

aim

s At

tack

s Ac

clai

ms

Atta

cks

Incu

mbe

nt

9

19

7

1

6

1

Chal

leng

ers

11

78

13

10

2

4

6

Tota

l

20

97

20

11

3

0

7

62 Benoit

acclaimed (6% to 94%). These differences were significant (χ2 [df = 1] = 103.42, p < .001, φ = .82) with a noticeably large effect size. So, the fourth hypothesis was confirmed. These data are reported in Tables 3 and 4.

The last two hypotheses concerned the functions addressed when candidates discussed general goals and ideals. The candidates used general goals more often to support acclaims (74%) than attacks (26%). A chi-square goodness-of-fit test confirms that these differences are significant (χ2 [df = 1] = 31.84, p < .001), which confirmed the fifth hypothesis. These candidates used ideals as the basis for acclaims more often than attacks (78% to 22%). A chi-square goodness-of-fit test confirms that these differences are significant (χ2 [df = 1] = 7.35, p < .05). So, the final hypothesis was confirmed. Tables 5 and 6 report these data.

Discussion

One candidate acclaimed more than he attacked; however, the three challengers attacked more than they acclaimed. Thus, the total use of functions in this debate revealed that acclaims and attacks occurred at the same rate. The first hypothesis was not confirmed, except that defenses were the least common function. Although candidates have a reason to avoid excessive use of attacks (voters do not like mudslinging), challengers tend to attack incumbents. In this case, the reasons to attack the incumbent must have outweighed the desire to avoid backlash from attacking too much. Table 1 shows that acclaims were more common than attacks, and defenses least common, in leaders’ debates in other countries. The Ukraine was an exception: it, like the Canadian elections of 2011, was quite hostile. The first vote was declared invalid due to vote fraud and one candidate accused the other of poisoning him. Here, the challengers forced a vote of no confidence even though polls showed the Conservatives


were doing well in the polls. Perhaps their animosity led them to attack Harper and his policies so much.

Functional Theory holds that political leaders (presidents, prime ministers, chancellors) implement policy; some voters may view them as role models but generally policy is more important than character. In the 2011 Canadian English language debate, every candidate discussed policy more than character. Table 2 reveals that this pattern was followed in other countries: Australia, Canada (2006), Israel, Taiwan, the Ukraine, and the United States. This emphasis on policy over character in debates appears to transcend political borders and culture.

Stephen Harper, the incumbent, acclaimed more and attacked less than the three challengers in this debate. Table 3 shows that this relationship held in other countries: Australia, Canada (2006), Israel, Taiwan, the Ukraine, and the United States. Functional Theory argues that this contrast is in large part a function of their records in office. One’s record as Prime Minister is arguably better evidence of how one would perform as Prime Minister than a record as a Member of Parliament. Both incumbents and challengers talk more about the incumbents’ record than the challengers’ record and, of course, incumbents acclaim their record while challengers attack the incumbents’ record. In Table 4, we can see this relationship between incumbents and challengers when they discussed past deeds occurred in other countries: Australia, Canada (2006), Israel, Taiwan, the Ukraine, and the United States.

The last two hypotheses concerned the prediction that general goals and ideals often lend themselves more to acclaims than attacks. This was the case in the data from the 2011 Canadian English language debate. Past research confirms that general goals are used more often to acclaim than attack in Australia, Canada (2006), Israel, the Ukraine, and the United States. In the 2011 Canadian

64 Benoit

debate, ideals were more often the basis for acclaims than attacks. This relationship was confirmed in Australia, Taiwan, the Ukraine, and the United States; the frequency of ideals in Canada (2006) and Israel were too low for statistical analysis.

Conclusion

The election did not go well for the challengers who forced a vote of no confidence for Prime Minister Harper. His Conservative Party won enough seats in the election to move from being a minority party to being the majority party. Two of the challenger party leaders, Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Quebecois) and Michael Ignatieff (Liberal Party), lost their seats in this election (Elections Canada, 2012). This study does not have data on the audience effects of this debate, so it has no basis for claiming that these election results can be attributed to this debate. However, the research cited in the literature review shows that political leaders’ campaign debates are capable of influencing voters. Future research could profitably investigate other aspects of election debates, such as use of evidence or metaphors, or inquire further into the effects of debates.

References

Baker, K. L., & Norpoth, H. (1981). Candidates on television: The 1972 electoral debates in West Germany. Public Opinion Quarterly, 45, 329-345.

Benoit, W. L. (2003). Presidential campaign discourse as a causal factor in election outcome. Western Journal of Communication, 67, 97-112. doi:10.1080/10570310309374760

Benoit, W. L. (2006). Retrospective versus prospective statements and outcome of presidential elections. Journal of Communication, 56, 331-345. doi:10.1111/


j.1460-2466.2006.00022.x

Benoit, W. L. (2007). Communication in political campaigns. New York: Peter Lang.

Benoit, W. L., Hansen, G. J., & Verser, R. M. (2003). A meta-analysis of the effects of viewing U.S. presidential debates. Communication Monographs, 70, 335-350. doi:10.1080/0363775032000179133

Benoit, W. L., & Henson, J. R. (2007). A functional analysis of the 2006 Canadian and 2007 Australian election debates. Argumentation & Advocacy, 44, 36-48.

Benoit, W. L., & Klyukovski, A. A. (2006). A functional analysis of the 2004 Ukrainian debates. Argumentation, 20, 209-225. doi:10.1007/s10503-006-9007-x

Benoit, W. L., Pier, P. M., Brazeal, L. M., McHale, J. P., Klyukovksi, A., & Airne, D. (2002). The primary decision: A functional analysis of debates in presidential primaries. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Benoit, W. L., & Sheafer, T. (2006). Functional theory and televised discourse: Televised debates in Israel and the United States. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 83, 281-297.

Benoit, W. L., & Wells, W. T. (1996). Candidates in conflict: Persuasive attack and defense in the 1992 presidential debates. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.

Benoit, W. L., Wen, W-C., & Yu, T. (2007). A functional analysis of 2004 Taiwanese political debates. Asian Journal of Communication, 17, 24-39. doi:10.1080/01292980601114521

Blais, A., & Boyer, M. M. (1996). Assessing the impact of televised debates: The case of the 1988 Canadian election. British Journal of Political Science, 26, 143-164. doi:10.1017/S0007123400000405

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Blais, A., Gidengil, E., Nadeau, R., & Nevitte, N. (2003). Campaign dynamics in the 2000 Canadian election: How the leader debates salvaged the conservative party. PS: Political Science & Politics, 36, 45-50. doi:10.1017/S1049096503001677

Blais, A., & Perrella, A. M. L. (2008). Systemic effects of televised candidates’ debates. International Journal of Press/Politics 13, 451-464. doi:10.1177/1940161208323548

Blum-Kulka, S, & Liebes, T. (2000). Peres versus Netanyahu: Television wins the debate, Israel, 1996. In S. Coleman (Ed.), Televised election debates: International perspectives (pp. 66-91). London: MacMillan.

Chaffee, S. H. (1978). Presidential debates: Are they helpful to voters? Communication Monographs, 49, 330-346. doi:10.1080/03637757809375978

Choi, Y. S., & Benoit, W. L. (2009). A functional analysis of French and South Korean debates. Speaker & Gavel, 46, 59-78.

Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 37-46. doi:10.1177/001316446002000104

Elections Canada. 2011 General Election. (2012, February 11). Retrieved February 22, 2012 from http://enr.elections.ca/Home1.aspx

Fass, T., & Maier, J. (2004). Chancellor-candidates in the 2002 televised debates. German Politics, 13, 300-316.

Galloway, G. (2011, March 25). Harper government falls in historic Commons showdown. Retrieved February 12, 2012 from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-government-falls-in-historic-commons-showdown/article1956416/


Global News. (2011, April 13). Analyzing the leaders’ debate. Retrieved February 12, 2012 from http://www.globalnews.ca/decisioncanada/debate/index.html

Hellweg, S. A., Pfau, M., & Brydon, S. R. (1992). Televised presidential debates: Advocacy in contemporary America. New York: Praeger.

James, F. (2011, March 25). Canada’s leader Harper loses historic no-confidence vote. Retrieved February 12, 2012 from http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/03/25/134861401/canadas-leader-harper-loses-historic-no-confidence-vote

Jamieson, K. H., & Birdsell, D. S. (1988). Presidential debates: The challenge of creating an informed electorate. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jarman, J. W. (2005). Political affiliation and presidential debates: A real-time analysis of the effect of arguments used in the presidential debates. American Behavioral Scientist, 49, 229-242. doi:10.1177/0002764205280921

Kaid, L. L, & Johnston, A. (2001). Videostyle in presidential campaigns: Style and content of televised political advertising. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Kraus, S. (Ed.). (1962). The great debates: Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Lanoue, D. J. (1991). Debates that mattered: Voters’ reaction to the 1984 Canadian leadership debates. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 24, 51-65. doi:10.1017/S000842390001341X

Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 33, 159-174.

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LeDuc, L., & Price, R. (1985). Great debates: The televised leadership debates of 1979. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 18, 135-153. doi:10.1017/S0008423900029255

Louden, A. (2011). Presidential political debates: Selected bibliography. Retrieved January 15, 2011 from http://www.wfu.edu/~louden/Political%20Communication/Bibs/DEBATES.html

Maier, J., & Faas, T. (2003). The affected German voter: Televised debates, follow-up communication, and candidate evaluations. Communications, 28, 383-404.

McKinney, M. S., & Carlin, D. B. (2004). Political campaign debates. In L. L. Kaid (Ed.), Handbook of political communication research (pp. 203-234). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Merritt, S. (1984). Negative political advertising: Some empirical findings. Journal of Advertising, 13, 27-38.

Reinemann, C., & Maurer, M. (2005). Unifying or polarizing short-term effects and postdebate consequences of different rhetorical strategies in televised debates. Journal of Communication, 55, 775-794. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2005.tb03022.x

Rill, L., & Benoit, W. L. (2009). A functional analysis of 2008 general election debates. Chicago: National Communication Association.

Schrott, P. R. (1990). Electoral consequences of “winning” televised campaign debates. Public Opinion Quarterly, 54, 567-585.

Stewart, C. J. (1975). Voter perception of mud-slinging in political communication. Central States Speech Journal, 26, 279-286. doi:10.1080/10510977509367854.


William L. Benoit (Ph.D., Wayne State University) is a professor of Communication Studies at Ohio University. Correspondence should be addressed to William L. Benoit at [email protected].

70 Davis Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, 2011 70

CAD FORUM

DEBATE AS PEDAGOGYMichael Davis, James Madison University

Debate pedagogy is both prevalent and elusive. Debate coaches and educators around the country constantly innovate and explore ways to make their teams more competitive, to integrate debate into the classroom, and to expand the scope of debate on their campuses. Despite abundant examples of debate pedagogy, however, practitioners and instructors are often silent about instructional strategies. Many pedagogical initiatives are akin to reinventing the wheel, with each debate coach developing activities that work for them (or for other coaches they have worked under) without a great degree of sharing between debate educators.

This forum is an effort to begin a conversation among debate professionals about pedagogical methods that help raise the stature of all debate education. To that end, this forum serves two purposes. First, it allows for the sharing of a variety of pedagogical methods. Currently, coaches tend to pass their own methods to debaters or graduate assistants. Improvement of teaching techniques, therefore, often results from one’s contextual circumstances and not from desire to create or engage with an expansive and comprehensive teaching toolbox. This forum could serve as a model for debate educators to willingly and openly share instructional techniques to improve the activity as a whole.

The second purpose of this forum is to demonstrate


the diversity that exists in debate pedagogy. Debate pedagogy is more expansive than team strategy sessions, argumentation in the debate classroom, or teaching new debaters the finer points of competitive policy debate. All of those are important academic endeavors, but the pieces in this forum demonstrate that debate pedagogy reaches further. Debate pedagogy extends into dozens of communication classrooms, numerous public debates on college campuses and, when done right, into every intercollegiate debate.

In the following pages, we observe a variety of pedagogical approaches. First, William Mosley-Jensen’s exercise details how to introduce competitive components of a debate tournament into the college classroom. Mosley-Jensen argues that competition can motivate students to more closely examine important pieces of scholarship and to synthesize key components of a reading or other assignment into argument for an in-class debate. This forum then moves to Jarrod Atchison’s exercise suggesting how to incorporate stakeholders in a debate exercise. Atchison expands the traditional notion of switch-side debate by paying attention to audience roles, projected or real, and the stakes they may have in controversy at the center of a debate. The third piece in this forum is Kevin Kuswa’s exercise shifting controversy exploration functions of switch-side debate from the competitive format to the classroom through the development of controversy briefs. Kuswa adds a formal structure to in-class debates, encouraging students to research the heart of a given controversy in a manner that promotes a clash of ideas through pre-debate preparation. Finally, Michael Davis and Peter Bsumek explore the possibility of heightening scholarly potential of public debates for undergraduate students. Davis and Bsumek argue that instead of simply asking students to attend public debates as audience members, educators should encourage

72 Davis Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, 2011 72

students’ engagement through the development of written reflections connected to course content.

Ideally, this forum is not a final product, but rather the beginning of sustained discussion among debate coaches and educators leading to the sharing and innovation of pedagogical tools. Students excel when educators encourage them to engage debate pedagogy in a sustained and proactive manner. Debate programs with access to robust and rigorous methods for advocacy and argument development hold great potential for student achievement and competitive success.

Michael Davis (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is an assistant professor of Communication Studies and Director of Debate at James Madison University. Correspondence should be addressed to Michael Davis at [email protected].


COMPETITION AS EDUCATION: BRINGING THE TOURNAMENT TO THE CLASSROOM

William E. Mosley-Jensen, University of Georgia

Courses: Introduction to Debate, Advanced Debate Instruction, Argumentation and Advocacy

Objectives: Students will: (1) read and critically engage a scholarly article on some aspect of debate theory; and (2) synthesize the concepts they encounter into a prepared argument for an in-class debate.

Rationale

Debate instruction often encounters a difficulty that is a unique to competitive academic activities: how to instruct individuals to succeed at making arguments in a competitive forum, when most of the instruction occurs in a setting that is unlike the practice of competition. In other words, debate preparation is characterized by dialogic exchange while debate itself is characterized by dialectic exchange. To the extent that competitive dialectic exchange produces valuable educational outcomes, the practice of competition should be brought into the classroom. In order to bridge the gap between competition and instruction, educators should construct competitive activities that serve the larger goal of debate pedagogy.

Forensic scholarship has long been tasked with defending the educational benefits of the competitive practice of debate. Organizations have at times questioned the educational benefits of competition, such as the 1950 call by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools to abolish “all interscholastic contests except athletics” (North Central Association . . . 1950, p.

74 Mosley-Jensen

145). There are a number of defenses of the competitive aspect of debate. Littlefield (2006) argues that “the debate over competition versus education is immaterial because both lead to a higher level, which should be the ultimate goal; that higher level is knowledge” (p. 6). Littlefield (2006) notes that competition is an epistemic practice that should be valued for the knowledge it produces.

Competition also enhances the process of preparation. Debate coaches understand the motivational push that a tournament provides with the rigorous testing of arguments and research that goes on in each contest round. Graham (1966) points out that in-class competition motivates students to more thoroughly prepare than they might otherwise do so. Debaters are no different than other students save that they are intensely aware of the adrenaline pumping atmosphere that a debate competition entails, and the acute preparation that is required to succeed in such circumstances. Harnessing the competitive energies in the instruction of debate practices and theory can more fully educate debaters about the substance of issues and arguments than basic classroom instruction.

The activity listed below (and its application to various courses) provides a way to bring competition to the classroom for instructing debaters and motivating them to prepare their arguments in advance of the tournament competition.

Activity and Debriefing

The purpose and exercise of this activity differs little between different courses, save in the details of the assigned topic. In each case, there is a common set of readings assigned before class, with a core set of concepts that will be used for the in-class debates. Ask students to prepare a short case on each side of the issue, usually around two minutes when delivered. Each debate consists


of this constructive, followed by the constructive on the opposing side and a rebuttal of the same length from each participant. Rather than simply having a smattering of random debates, this activity couples the excitement of the tournament structure with the instructional potential of a classroom space. Set up a bracket (similar to the elimination rounds of a tournament) and have multiple debates, with subsequently more advanced students debating in front of the class, while their peers evaluate and participate in the adjudication of the debates.

• For the Introduction to Debate Course: Topics that are best to choose for the introductory debate course include items that are central to the current debate resolution. If the resolution features the necessity of government spending, the topic chosen for the mini-tournament could be on the economics of that spending. Namely, what role should government spending play in the economy? Good readings to choose could include introductions to the Keynesian and neo-classical schools of economics.

• For the Advanced Debate Course: Topics that are best to choose for the advanced debate course include different aspects of debate theory, both contemporary and historic. These can include whether or not the negative should be allowed to read counterplans (historic), whether or not multiple conditional advocacies are justified (contemporary), the legitimacy of intrinsicness tests on the part of the affirmative, whether or not counterplans that can result in the plan are competitive, etc. Good readings to provide on these subjects are found in the annals of Argumentation and Advocacy, The Rostrum, Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, and the archives of Wake Forest University’s Debater’s Research Guide.

76 Mosley-Jensen

• For the Argumentation and Advocacy Course: Topics that are best to choose for an upper division argumentation course are classic public controversies. These include environmental regulation compared to free market approaches, tax reform, social services, death penalty, etc. For an environment topic, the debate hinges on whether or not protecting the environment is more important than economic growth, giving the students a valuable locus of clash to direct their argumentation.

Appraisal

The goal of this activity is to focus debate students’ attention and preparation in the same way that they prepare arguments for a tournament. By reading and getting ready for the in-class tournament, debaters are far more likely to engage materials seriously and systematically. Students are also among the best innovators of argument in this setting. Though a debate may seem to be thoroughly explored (such as the legitimacy of conditionality), this activity often brings forth new and interesting arguments that the students generate. One drawback to this activity is that it requires a significant time investment on the part of the debate instructor. It is time well spent though, given the retention of information that this activity facilitates.

The variations on the activity include offering a prize for the winner of the tournament, other than just the pride of feeling victorious. One interesting twist can be to hand over the judging of the tournament to the downed participants as they are eliminated from the tournament. This allows students who don’t do as much debating to be exposed to the increasingly more complex and well-prepared arguments of their compatriots. The process of judging these debates also clarifies the issues for less experienced or prepared students, and forces them to re-


evaluate the positions which they argued from.

Discussion

Debate is characterized by competition as coaches and students prepare throughout the year for the tournaments they attend. The educational benefits of debate come from the preparation process and the practice of attending tournaments and debating in round after round against intellectual equals. “[C]ompetition provides the incentives to teach our students more thoroughly, to discover new sources of arguments and interpretations, and then to submit those ideas to peer judgment” (Burnett et al., 2001, p. 107); it is in this spirit that this activity is constructed. By providing a tournament experience in the classroom, it is possible to channel competitive energy into the preparation and instruction of debate.

References and Suggested Readings

Burnett, A., Brand, J., & Meister, M. (2001). Forensics education? How the structure and discourse of forensics promotes competition. Argumentation and Advocacy, 38, 106-114.

Graham, J. (1966). Usefulness of debate in a public speaking course. Speech Teacher, 15, 136.

Littlefield, R. S. (2006). Beyond education vs. competition: On viewing forensics as epistemic. The Forensic of Pi Kappa Delta, 91, 3-15.

North Central Association stirs the witches’ brew. (1950, Winter). Speech Activities, 6, 145-147.

Williams, D. E., & McGee, B. R. (2000). Negotiating a change in the argumentation course: Teaching cooperative argument. Argumentation and Advocacy, 36, 105-109.

78 Mosley-Jensen

Woodyard, K. M. (2002). Competition and control: The open hand of dialogue in a closed-fist tradition. The Forensic of Pi Kappa Delta, 87, 13-24.

William E. Mosley-Jensen (M.A., University of Georgia) is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication Studies and graduate assistant debate coach at the University of Georgia. Correspondence should be addressed to William E. Mosley-Jensen at [email protected].


WHO CARES?: LEARNING PERSPECTIVE TAKING THROUGH STAKEHOLDERS

Jarrod Atchison, Wake Forest University

Courses: Public Speaking, Persuasion, Argumentation and Advocacy, Legal Communication

Objectives: Students will (1) identify relevant stakeholders for a public controversy; and (2) create and deploy arguments relevant to those stakeholders.

Rationale

Most communication courses involve some component of audience analysis. Communication scholars teach our students to be attentive to a wide range of information including, but not limited to, demographic and situational audience factors (Lucas, 2011). The difficulty, however, is incorporating audience analysis into the undergraduate curriculum because few classrooms include the broad range of stakeholders involved in any given public controversy. This exercise is designed to encourage students to identify relevant stakeholders for a public controversy and create and deploy arguments relevant to those stakeholders.

As many scholars have noted, one of the pedagogical benefits to participating in debate is learning the skill of perspective taking through switch side debate (Cripe, 1957; Cummings & Rief, 2010; Ehninger, 1958; English, Llano, Mitchell, Morrison, Rief, & Woods, 2007; Greene & Hicks, 2005; Harrigan, 2008; Hicks & Greene, 2010; Koehle, 2010; Mitchell, 2010; Muir, 1993; Munksgaard & Pfister, 2005; Murphy, 1957). Perspective taking helps build empathy and respect for different viewpoints. Most of the time, however, perspective taking is only framed in

80 Atchison

terms of the arguments a debater deploys when switching his/her side on a proposition. This exercise asks participants to take on the perspective of his/her audience by constructing arguments for specific stakeholders. Additionally, while the benefits of perspective taking are often limited to the debate participants, in this exercise, students not participating in the debate assume roles of specified stakeholders, which enable them to also gain the benefits of perspective taking.


In order to maximize the educational benefits of this exercise, students should choose a public controversy area to serve as the basis for class debates. The larger the class, the larger the controversy should be to facilitate identification of enough stakeholders to sustain the class debates. After selecting a controversy, the class should translate the controversy into a debate proposition with easily identifiable affirmative and negative sides. With agreement over the resolution, the class should:

• Identify a range of stakeholders involved in the controversy. Ideally, students will identify people directly affected by the controversy, agents with power to influence the controversy, and at least three stakeholders with an indirect relationship to the controversy.

• The instructor should divide the class into debate pairs. Depending on the size of the class, the instructor can create one-on-one debates or two-on-two debates.

• Each debate pair should draw out of a hat one of the stakeholders identified in the brainstorming session.

• Debaters should flip a coin to determine which side of the resolution they will defend in the debate.


• Each debater is responsible for generating arguments for the imagined stakeholder. The debaters are responsible for demonstrating knowledge of the stakeholder’s interest through their argumentation.

• Members of the class not participating in the debate should conduct peer evaluations wherein they critique the debaters as if they are the stakeholders specified for the debate.

Appraisal

The goal of this activity is to expand the benefits of perspective taking beyond the traditional switch side debate model by asking debaters to consider the perspective of a specific audience while simultaneously asking the rest of the class to assume the perspective of the stakeholder when evaluating the debate. When this exercise was conducted in a communication course at Wake Forest University, the students chose to debate about whether or not the federal government should tie state highway funds to state minimum drinking ages.

The major advantage of the exercise was that it required the students to make nuanced arguments for their imagined audiences rather than defaulting to their personal perspectives. For instance, the arguments and evidence relevant to the imagined debate in front of the executive board of Mothers Against Drunk Driving was entirely different than the arguments and evidence relevant to the imagined debate in front of a college fraternity. In both of these instances, the stakeholder bias was an extremely important variable in how students constructed their arguments. Students that excelled at the exercise were able to find creative connections to the audience that allowed them to make a persuasive claim without alienating the stakeholder’s overall position on underage drinking.

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The second advantage of this exercise was that the exercise exposed students to the wide variety of stakeholders involved in this controversy. The students brainstormed groups including: college administrators, state law enforcement agencies, parents, underage students, bar and restaurant owners, insurance companies, state budget officers, and many more. Several students commented that they had argued about the subject on numerous occasions, but that they had never realized just how many stakeholders were involved in the controversy.

Discussion

The benefits of perspective taking extend well beyond the curriculum of communication courses. This exercise borrows from one of the most rigorous academic communities, intercollegiate debate, by incorporating the concept of switch side debate. Unlike traditional intercollegiate debate, however, this exercise asks students to adapt to the rhetorical demands of specified stakeholders. Additionally, this exercise extends the benefits of switch side debate to the audience since they are asked to divorce their personal perspective on the topic and inhabit the subject position of the specified stakeholders as well.


Cripe, N. M. (1957). Debating both sides in tournaments is ethical. The Speech Teacher, 6, 209-212.

Cummings, K., & Rief, J. (2010). The many sides of switch-sides debate: Perspective taking and the limits of liberal-deliberative practice. In D. Gouran (Ed.), The functions of argument and social context (pp. 396-402). Washington, DC: National Communication Association.


Ehninger, D. (1958). The debate about debating. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 44, 128-136.

English, E., Llano, S., Mitchell, G. R., Morrison, C. E., Rief, J., & Woods, C. (2007). Debate as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 4, 221-225.

Greene, R. W., & Hicks, D. (2005). Lost convictions. Cultural Studies, 19, 100-126.

Harrigan, C. (2008). Against dogmatism: A continued defense of switch side debate. Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, 29, 37-66.

Hicks, D., & Greene, R. W. (2010). Conscientious objections: Debating both sides and the cultures of democracy. In D. Gouran (Ed.), The functions of argument and social context (pp. 172-178). Washington, DC: National Communication Association.

Koehle, J. (2010). Reuniting old friends: The sophists and academic debate. Advances in Communication Theory and Research, 3. Retrieved from http://www.k-state.edu/actr/2010/12/20/reuniting-old-friends-the-sophists-and-academic-debate-joe-koehle/default.htm.

Lucas, S. (2011). The art of public speaking (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Mitchell, G. R. (2010). Switch-side debate meets demand-driven rhetoric of science. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 13, 95-120.

Muir, S. A. (1993). A defense of the ethics of contemporary debate. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 26, 277-295.

Munksgaard, J., & Pfister, D. (2005). The public debater’s role in advancing deliberation: Towards switch-

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sides public debate. In C. Willard (Ed.), Critical problems in argumentation: Proceedings of the 13th NCA/AFA conference on argumentation (pp. 503-509). Washington, DC: National Communication Association.

Murphy, R. (1957). The ethics of debating both sides. The Speech Teacher, VI, 1-9.

Jarrod Atchison (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is an assistant professor of Communication and Director of Debate at Wake Forest University. Correspondence should be addressed to Jarrod Atchison at [email protected].


SWITCH-SIDE DEBATE EXERCISEKevin Kuswa, Fresno State

Courses: Introduction to Debate, Argumentation, Advanced Argumentation, Advanced Public Speaking

Objectives: The main objective is to prepare and conduct a series of debates on a particular resolution. For this exercise, students form groups of either three (for one-versus-one debates) or groups of six (for two-versus-two debates). Each student competes on the affirmative and the negative, as well as serving as an adjudicator for at least one of the group’s debates. The exercise is designed to enhance research skills, speaking skills, the application of arguments in a specific context, and teamwork.

Activity

The three main parts to consider in designing the exercise are the controversy briefs, the debates themselves, and the judging process.

Controversy briefs. Each group of students works together to create “controversy briefs” on either side of a given resolution. After crafting a resolution that features a relatively contentious statement with diverse arguments supporting each side, groups divide up the research and assemble the briefs. For example, if a group decides to debate the topic, “Resolved: The United States Federal Government should dismantle and destroy all of its nuclear weapons,” the students will want to collect as much research as possible both defending and challenging the concept of nuclear disarmament. Research materials could come from any number of sources depending on how many weeks are available to prepare. Typically, students are encouraged to find published materials from

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a wide variety of sources with diverse claims to credibility. Because debating the relative quality of the sources should come into play, the controversy briefs should include full author or source qualifications in the bibliography and discussion.

The briefs will have far more information and evidence than can be deployed in a single debate because the idea is to have students pick and choose a few arguments from the briefs when preparing for the actual debates. The format can vary, but some helpful guidelines follow:

1. Begin with the resolution or statement of controversy. This should be phrased as a statement that can be proven true or false. A few additional examples include, Resolved: the United States should drastically expand restrictions on firearms; Resolved: we should restrict economic growth to preserve the environment; or, Resolved: Social Security should be privatized.

2. Next, divide the document into two parts, the “Pro” and “Con” briefs. Each side should start with an interpretation of the crucial terms in the resolution that help to support or reject the statement. Students could use dictionary definitions, definitions from experts in the field, or even logical definitions as long as they make sense and help to either prove or reject the resolution. Terms should also play a role in the specific arguments in the brief.

3. Arguments should be numbered and should include as much supporting evidence as possible. Using an in-depth resolution like the examples above, it can take a month or two to complete the assignment if each side puts together 10 or more distinct arguments and each argument includes at least a full paragraph for both analysis and evidence. Some analysis from students is desirable in each argument; briefs are not just a collection of evidence without connections back to the statement. Students


should provide enough reference information with the evidence so that the full citation can be easily located in the bibliography. It also helps to include qualifications for sources and to justify those qualifications where possible.

4. The bibliography should include all bibliographic information for each citation.

It helps students to remember that briefs are not traditional essays or papers, and can include long block quotations. Briefs serve as suggestions and talking points for the debates so that clear analysis and summary statements on the major arguments are readily available.

Conducting debates. Timing debate speeches works well if the group has at least an hour of time available, with recognition that more in-depth events can occur with a longer time allotment. Within an hour, the suggested configurations are:

One vs. One debates with at least one judge:

4 minutes First Affirmative

3 minutes CX: The negative speaker cross-examines the affirmative speaker.

6 minutes First Negative

3 minutes CX: The affirmative speaker cross-examines the negative speaker.

5 minutes Second Affirmative

7 minutes Second Negative

4 minutes Third affirmative speech, First aff rebuttal

3.5 minutes Third negative speech, First neg rebuttal

3.5 minutes Fourth affirmative speech, Second aff rebuttal

Running preparation time is usually 3-5 minutes.

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Two vs. Two debates with at least one judge:

5 minutes First Affirmative Constructive: This speech is almost fully prepared before the debate starts and is expected to defend the resolution in the most compelling way possible. The format is flexible, but most good 1As will defend an interpretation of the resolution and then establish 3-5 arguments in favor of the resolution.

3 minutes CX of 1AC: The negative team cross-examines the affirmative speaker. This time can be used to clarify information, set up future arguments, expose weaknesses in the speech, etc.

5 minutes First Negative Constructive: The task of the 1N is to refute all arguments presented by the first affirmative and to provide 2-3 additional reasons why the resolution is flawed and should be rejected. In general, the need for a rejection of the resolution can be demonstrated in two ways: by refuting the affirmative’s arguments in defense of the topic; and, secondly, by introducing additional arguments against the resolution itself.

3 minutes CX of 1NC

5 minutes Second Affirmative: This speech requires the affirmative speaker to extend the initial defenses of the resolution (by refuting the negative’s arguments and re-explaining the original positions) and to refute the new arguments that the negative has raised concerning the resolution. The affirmative speaker may decide at this point that all of the aff arguments cannot be defended. In that case, the affirmative speaker can “pick-and-choose” certain aff arguments to go for, proving that those arguments outweigh the positions that the negative has advanced.

3 minutes CX of 2AC

Note: At this point, the negative will have two speeches


in a row—called the negative block. To maximize two speeches in a row, it is a good idea for the two negative speakers to split up the burdens of the 2NC and the 1NR.

5 minutes Second Negative Constructive: This speech responds to a portion of the 2AC arguments. The 2NC should elaborate on the negative’s strongest argument/s and refute the statements made by the affirmative in the 2AC.

3 minutes CX of 2NC

3 minutes First Negative Rebuttal: The “R” stands for rebuttal. The distinction is that the constructive speeches are designed to set up new arguments for or against the resolution. The rebuttal is designed to respond to those arguments. The 1NR is expected to respond to the portion of the 2AC arguments that were not touched by the 2NC.

3 minutes First Affirmative Rebuttal: This speech should refute all the remaining negative arguments against the resolution, extend the reasons advanced in favor of the resolution, and sum up the arguments defending the resolution. Perhaps the most difficult speech in the debate, the 1AR is expected to respond to everything said in the 2NC and the 1NR. This burden requires the 1AR to “group” arguments and to respond to multiple negative arguments with only one or two points.

3 minutes Second Negative Rebuttal: This is the final negative speech. The 2NR needs to respond to all arguments made in the 1AR by setting up a series of reasons why the resolution should be negated. What are the most compelling and major reasons the negative has won the debate? Why is the resolution false? The 2NR also has to close the door on the affirmative and pre-empt things that might come up in the last affirmative speech.

3 minutes Second Affirmative Rebuttal: This is the last speech of the debate—designed for the affirmative to

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extend arguments in favor of the resolution and respond to any remaining negative arguments. The affirmative does not have to win all the arguments made in the debate, but still needs to refute each of the negative’s main positions and provide a reason to affirm the resolution.

Appraisal and Discussion

The exercise is flexible and can be modified for any context, but consistently provides a way for students to engage in argument clash, group research, and advocacy through public speaking. Judging the debate is an important element, and is a way to introduce “flowing” as a means of taking notes. Further information on judge paradigms and in-depth flowing is readily available, but as a short course, it is a very good idea for the judge and competitors to write down all arguments in subsequent columns for each speech. The direct response to each argument (if there is one—and there should be) is written down adjacent to the position being challenged. A clear argument comparison should emerge in the last two columns, the 2NR and 2AR. Because each student debates on both the affirmative and negative, and has the opportunity to judge, a single group will experience a series of debates. One option is to collect flow charts and ballots for debates conducted outside of class and ask each group to perform a final debate in front of the rest of the class. Students report that they learn a large amount about their particular topic in a number of ways: through the process of switch-side debate, working closely with a group, and delivering an advocacy speech on either side of a particular topic. Feedback suggests this activity is a valuable way to guide students toward a sense of ownership over their research and arguments through both competition and collaboration.


Suggested Readings

Buckley, D. C. (1983). A comparison of judging paradigms. In D. Zarefsky, M. O. Sillars, & J. Rhodes (Eds.), Argument in transition: Proceedings of the third summer conference on argumentation (pp. 858-869). Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.

Hample, D. (2010). Argument: Its origin, function, and structure. In D. Gouran (Ed.), The functions of argument and social context (pp. 1-10). Washington, DC: National Communication Association/American Forensic Association.

Mitchell, G. (2010). iSocrates: Student-led public debate as cultural technology. Controversia, 7, 54-75.

Snider, A. (2008). Code of the debater: Introduction to policy debating. New York: International Debate Education Association.

Kevin Kuswa (Ph.D., University of Texas) is an assistant professor of Communication and Director of Debate at Fresno State. Correspondence should be addressed to Kevin Kuswa at [email protected].

92 Davis & Bsumek Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, 2011 92

THE PUBLIC DEBATE WRITING ASSIGNMENT: DEVELOPING AN

ACADEMICALLY ENGAGED DEBATE AUDIENCE

Michael Davis, James Madison University and Peter Bsumek, James Madison University

Courses: Public Speaking, Persuasion, Conflict Analysis, Argumentation and Advocacy, Organizational Communication, Cultural/Intercultural Communication

Objectives: Students will: (1) attend and critically analyze a public debate; and (2) be able to connect the arguments and strategies in the public debate with concepts from their courses.

Rationale

There are dozens of public debates on college campuses each academic year, and faculty all receive e-mail encouraging us to send students to such events as extra credit. Members of communication departments want to be supportive of their colleagues, and often dutifully send students off to events with a simple check mark for attendance. However, if such events are educational in nature and can add to students’ overall experience in their communication courses, then it is critical to ensure their participation in public debate events contains some degree of academic rigor. Giving students credit simply for attending does not forward the aims of public debate to create an engaged citizenry.

Previous studies of the use of extra credit indicate that instructors tend to choose extra credit opportunities that they believe provide the greatest potential educational


value to students (Hill, Palladino, & Eison, 1993; Norcross & Dooley, 1993). The public, on-campus debate certainly provides students with an example of intense public deliberation on important public issues. Condit and Lucaites (1993) argue that “public argumentation functions as a contest of competing voices concerned to determine the best course of action in contingent situations” (p. xii). It is easy to see how this style of engagement could enhance an audience’s understanding of a number of communication concepts. Simple attendance, however, does not provide students with sufficient engagement with the material to constitute an educational experience.

The activities listed below encourage students to view public debate through the lens of their communication theory or practice courses. By doing so, students should begin to see everyday applications of concepts they are discussing in a variety of communication courses.


In order to ensure that students gain the highest educational benefit from this assignment, the reflection pieces that students complete should be specific to the course that is assigning the extra credit. Below are some examples of student reflection pieces for a variety of courses:

• For the Public Speaking Course: Ask students to reflect on how debaters use (or fail to use) delivery, performance, or style to create ethos and adapt to their audience. This assignment could also be made more specific to a particular course concept (i.e., persuasive speaking, gestures, etc.). Additionally, attention could be paid to the manner in which debaters organize, adapt, frame, and/or present their arguments in an attempt to adapt to their audience.

94 Davis & Bsumek Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, 2011 94

• For the Persuasion Course: Ask students to reflect on the nature of persuasion—which teams did they think were most persuasive and why? Were they most persuaded by logos, ethos or pathos? How important is a good balance of all three to a persuasive argument?

• For the Argumentation Course: Ask students to identity some different argumentative strategies and techniques used by debaters, and compare and contrast their “effectiveness.” Did any of the debaters use “unethical” strategies and/or techniques?

• For the Communication and Conflict Course: Have students identify the value, if any, of an “adversarial” forum/format like debate to decision-making, topic education, public discussion and dialogue. Students might be asked to focus on whether a public debate is an adversarial, or a cooperative, event. How is a facilitated debate different from what usually “passes” as debate in our contemporary culture?

• For the Cultural/Intercultural Communication Course: Ask students to isolate ways that the debaters constructed (or attempted to construct) identity (their own and that of the audience) in order to build their arguments. What are the social, political, and/or cultural implications of constructing identity in a manner as the debaters did? Do the different positions advanced by the debaters invite audience members to assume different identities? How important are these identities (or roles) to the success or failure of the political positions advanced? Are certain identities privileged? Whose identities are marginalized?

• For the Organizational Communication


Course: Have students reflect on topics of the “event.” What role does the event play in creating organizational identity—how does the university, department, or the debate program define itself through the event? How do these organizations define themselves in relation to other organizations or communities? What organizational rituals can you observe at the event? What function or role do they play for the organization, and are these positive or negative?

Appraisal

The goal of this activity is to encourage students to go beyond just attending a public debate and instead to increase their reflection on course concepts by asking students to be active audience members. The only drawback to the addition of these activities is that they do create an additional level of work for the faculty member. However, the educational benefit gained by asking students to complete meaningful assignments far outweighs the additional work of grading a few more short papers.

There are numerous variations to these activities customizable to communication courses taught by individual departments. Additionally, assignments can apply more specifically to lessons taught during the time period in which the public debate takes place. These variations create a much richer experience for the student and provide a greater opportunity for faculty debriefing after public debate events.

Discussion

Alexander (1995) argues that in order for the study and practice of communication to realize its full potential, students must be willing to engage “themselves imaginatively into the standpoint of others in order to comprehend the dimensions of the situation as a whole,

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in terms of possibilities as well as actualities” (p. 144). Asking students to evaluate aspects of public debate when completing extra credit assignments for a class encourages them to engage in debates not just as passive audience members, but as active citizen participants. The addition of a more rigorous standard to traditional extra credit opportunities increases the rigor associated with communication courses, and provides student with another avenue through which to gain insights into important communication concepts.


Alexander, T. A. (1995). John Dewey and the roots of democratic imagination. In L. Langsdorf & A. Smith (Eds.), Recovering pragmatism’s voice (pp. 131-154). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Asen, R. (1999). Toward a normative conception of difference in public deliberation. Argumentation and Advocacy, 35, 115-129.

Condit, C. M. & Lucaites, J. L. (1993). Crafting equality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hill, G. W., IV, Palladino, J. J., & Eison, J. A. (1993). Blood, sweat, and trivia: Faculty ratings of extra-credit opportunities. Teaching of Psychology, 20, 209-213.

Mitchell, G. (1997, March 23). Both sides now. Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, p. B4.

Norcross, J. C., & Dooley, H. S. (1993). Faculty use and justification of extra credit: No middle ground? Teaching Of Psychology, 20, 240-242.

Suzuki, T. (2001, December 28). Lingua frankly, public debate in Pittsburgh. The Daily Yomiuri, p. 17.

Thompson, D. F., & Gutmann, A. (1999). Democratic


disagreement. In S. Macedo (Ed.), Deliberative politics: Essays on democracy and disagreement (pp. 243-279). New York: Oxford University Press.

Thorne, B. M. (2000). Extra credit exercise: A painless pop quiz. Teaching of Psychology, 27, 204-205.

Zarefsky, D. (1998, March). The decline of public debate. USA Today Magazine, p. 57.

Michael Davis (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is an assistant professor of Communication Studies and Director of Debate at James Madison University. Peter Bsumek (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh) is an associate professor of Communication Studies at James Madison University. Correspondence should be addressed to Michael Davis at [email protected].

CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

Submission PolicyContemporary Argumentation and Debate: The Journal of the Cross Examination Debate Association, is a refereed journal dedicated to publishing quality scholarship related to the theory and practice of debate (academic and pubic sphere) and argumentation (theoretical and applied).

Submission GuidelinesManuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the 6th edi-tion (as updated, 2010) of the Publication Manual of the Ameri-can Psychological Association. The journal employs a blind re-view system. Manuscripts must be submitted electronically in a current Word or rich-text format to the website http://www.cedadebate.org/CAD. An account must be created in order to submit a manuscript. The manuscript should not contain in-ternal references that identify the author in a way that might compromise blind review. All correspondence relating to the manuscript, including notification that the manuscript has been received, will be directed to the specified author. Authors sub-mitting to Contemporary Argumentation and Debate must give exclusive right of review to this journal until such time that the review has been completed. Upon acceptance, assignment of copyright will be made to the Cross Examination Debate Asso-ciation. CAD is an annual publication with manuscripts accepted throughout the year.

Jennifer L. Bevan, Chapman UniversityGordon Stables, University of Southern CaliforniaEditors, Contemporary Argumentation and DebateEmail: [email protected]

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