Nonverbal communication as argumentation: the case of political television debates

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how nonverbal communication may perform argumentative functions in television debates by acclaiming and defending the debater’s own ethos and in attacking the opponent’s ethos. We argue that studies of non-verbal communication in debates should not only study what is done nonverbally, but also how it is done. This informs our analyses of excerpts of television debates between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the 2008 primary election campaign. Our analyses establish two main types of nonverbal rhetoric, enacted actio and restrained actio, and show how these may be used argumentatively. We introduce the concept of the personal qualifier to signify how debaters nonverbally can express degrees of certainty and emotional involvement, similar to the function of qualifier in Stephen Toulmin’s argument model.