AN ANALYSIS OF EDITORIALS OF PDI, PHILIPPINE STAR, TEMPO AND PEOPLE’S JOURNAL BASED ON THE TOULMIN MODEL OF ARGUMENTATION

Introduction

Nearly everyday of our lives, we engage in arguments. We argue with our friends, colleagues, parents, bosses (if we can), professors, and even with ourselves. We sometimes even catch ourselves arguing against what we read in the newspapers, hear in the radio, or watch in television. And sometimes, when we engage in arguments, we do not realize that our sparring mate has already stirred us into another direction and we find ourselves agreeing to what she is saying. Now, how was she able to do that?

Arguments have existed since time immemorial. We can trace this even as far back as Aristotle and Plato. It is quite certain that arguments existed way before them. But Plato and Aristotle, because of their notable contributions in philosophy nd theology, are often cited as the professional arguers of ancient times. Their style, however, differ from each other. Whereas Plato was more concerned with the idea of establishing the truth as seen in his dialogues, Aristotle was more concerned with probabilities, as seen in his “Rhetoric”.

“The ancient audiences, like modern audiences, would disagree with many views that were stated as absolutely true.” (Wood 124) And so, to communicate effectively, the persuaders had to “modify and qualify their views in order to make them acceptable to the audiences.” (Wood 124) It was man’s natural sharp instinct that gave birth to organized arguments.

“Views that are probably true comprise the realm of argument.” (Wood 124) However, even if we are only talking about probabilities, the connections and the qualified conclusions must follow a logical pattern. This is how Stephen Toulmin, the modern English philosopher, came up with the framework where most of the other frameworks in argumentative analysis stemmed from. As a logician, he argued that logic can be applied to the analysis of arguments.

“Logic is concerned with the soundness of the claims we make – with the solidity of the grounds we produce to support them, the firmness of the backing we provide for them – or to change the metaphor, with the sort of case we present in defense of our claims.” (Toulmin 1964)

The Toulmin model of Argumentative analysis is divided into six parts, with the three others having an optional character. The essential parts are claim, proof (Support), and warrant. The three others, which are of equal importance although not always present in arguments, are rebuttal, backing, and qualifier. Such will be discussed in detail later in the methodology and framework of study.

I chose to study the editorials of Philippine newspapers written in English not only because they were the most accessible argumentative pieces but because of the impact of editorials in print. Editorials represent the “opinion function of the “ publication. There are some newspapers that believe that “editorials should only express the writer’s viewpoint while others believe that editorials must express the pro and the con of a subject for the benefit of the reader.” (WWW O’Fallon July 2003) Editorials serve a variety of functions such as explain a policy, persuade readers to take action or respond, warn or caution readers to beware of possible consequences, criticize an action or performance, praise accomplishments, entertain, and lead readers to espouse a course of action or resolve an issue. (WWW O”Fallon) Realizing this, it is pertinent that editorials be studied based on how they make claims and support them. This will train us to become active readers and be conscious of where the writer is coming from and where she is leading you. It would also serve as a good springboard for future argumentative writing.

It was unfortunate that I was not able to find a journal that is the exact replica of my study, but I did find journals on the representation of truth in academic medical writing and justification of outcomes in qualitative research. Although, we used different frameworks, we share almost similar objectives in trying to identify patterns in the arrival of truth or probability. Each journal will be discussed briefly.

“The Representation of Truth in Academic Medical Writing” by John Skelton that appears in the Applied Lingusitics journal Vol. 18 looks at research papers from three leading British medical journals and identifies three types of truths namely contextual truth, evidential truth, and interpreted truth. His main objective is to point out “that scientific writers have a position with respect to facts as well as to an audience, that the purpose of scientific writing is therefore to express claims and relationships in matters of fact and logic rather than of interaction.” (121) In this sense, his objective and mine are almost similar. Although editorials are written precisely to express a claim and defend it while medical journals are written to present scientific facts, we both want to reveal patterns of logic construction.

Skelton defines contextual truths as the “set of schemata which are the backdrop against which the research to be displayed is interpreted, and the set of generalizations which constrain the enquiry”. (126) This is the context established in the Introduction or the givens of the study. Evidential truths, on the other hand, are the unambiguous parts of the study. These are the truths as results of the study in question. They comprise the Results section. On the other hand, the Interpreted truth, as the name suggests, is found in the Discussion part or Interpretation of results. Interpretations can be interpretative labeling or speculative. “Interpretative labeling involves judgements about value, and speculation involves judgement of facts.” (132)

The paper shows that representation of truth in many scientific disciplines is highly formalized and that the three types of truth and the options to refer to them are restricted by conventions.

The second journal article entitled “May I see Your Warrant, Please? Justifying Outcomes in Qualitative Research” by Julian Edge and Keith Richards that appeared in Applied Linguistics Vol. 19 addresses the need to provide adequate justification or warrant for the specific claims in qualitative research in TESOL/Applied Linguistics. They argue that researchers must be aware of its subject position, the voice in which he or she is allowed to speak or does he allow the readers to make interpretations for themselves, and the kind of discourse or representation embedded in the text. Who is the audience that the author was thinking in writing his research? They say that what is important is in submitting a thesis or dissertation is that researcher is able to answer the question “What warrant do you have for the statements that you make?”

“The researcher is called upon to reflect his or her motivations in the framing of the argument, or to be prepared to formulate an appropriate defense against charges of naivety and/or supporting an iniquitous status quo” (Edge and Richards 352) Position, voice, and representation must be mapped onto authenticity and legitimacy.

The previous journal speaks of voice, position, and representation, which are in a way also reflected in editorials. How an editorial is organized in a certain newspaper characterizes the stand of that publication. Whether it is political or apolitical, pro-administration, anti-administration or neither, what particular audience do the writers have in mind, thinking individuals that are concerned with the status of the Philippine politics or economy, or people who hardly even go through the editorials and instead read just the sports or entertainment sections.

My study aims to establish the argumentative structure that Philippine editorials namely Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, People’s Journal, and Tempo follow by identifying the six parts of argument imbedded in them using the Toulmin Model. Hopefully, this will also in a way open the eyes of readers into certain patterns of argument which they may criticize or apply when they write argumentative pieces.

Methodology
A total of twenty editorials were chosen for the study, five from each of the four newspapers. Philippine Daily Inquirer and Philippine Star were chosen among the Philippine broadsheets because they are among the top three sellers according to the recent Asia Research Organization (ARO) survey. The Manila Bulletin was left out since it has the same publisher as that of Tempo. Tempo and People’s Journal are the only morning tabloids written in English. The newspaper issues were picked up during the first week of study, from July 7 to July 11, 2003.

After gathering the data, finding enough related literature, and identifying the framework, reading and re-reading plus taking down of notes/ tabularizing was done to the editorials. A table was devised for each newspaper where the parts of the argument are classified according to the six elements of argument based on the Toulmin model.

Because editorials are written for a variety of purposes, I decided to incorporate Nancy V. Wood’s (1995) classification of claim with Toulmin’s parts of argument. Wood’s classification is the same as that of Rotenberg (1985) except that Rotenberg has only three classifications while Wood has five. I chose Wood over Rotenberg in that her work is more recent. They both classifiy claims into claim of fact, value, and policy. Wood, however, adds two more categories. These are the claims of definition and cause.

Let us first discuss the Toulmin model of argumentative analysis. It has six parts as mentioned earlier. The first three are essential while the last three are optional. All in all, the six parts are the claim, data, warrant, backing, rebuttal, and the qualifier.

Claim organizes the entire argument and everything else related to it. It is the thesis, the proposition, conclusion, or the main point. It seeks to answer the question “What is the author trying to prove?” An argument may have a central claim and a number of sub-claims. In the present analysis, the central claim was classified according to category and the sub-claims were enumerated.

Here, let me insert Wood’s five categories of claims. First is the claim of fact which answers the question “Did it happen?” Is it true?” “Does it exist” Is it a fact?” Claims of fact may either be absolutely true or probably true and are usually controversial issues like America’s military is prepared for any crisis or the sort. It is backed up by facts, statistics, real examples, or quotations from reliable authorities and the possible organizational strategy is chronological or topical. The claim is usually stated near or in the beginning.(Wood 162-163)

Second is the claim of definition. Claim of definition seeks to answer questions like “What is it? What is it like? How does its usual meaning change in a particular context?” Claims of definition are usually backed up by references to reliable authorities, well-known works, analogies and other comparisons, real and hypothetical examples and signs. The possible organizational structures are comparison and contrast, topical organization, and explanation of controversy over the term. (164-165)

Another category is the claim of cause. It answers the questions “What caused it? Where did it come from? Why did it happen? What probably will be the result both on a short-term and long-term basis? The types of proof that go with such claim are cause and effect relationship among data, factual information, statistics, analogies that are both literal and historical, signs of certain causes and effects, induction and deduction. The possible organizational structures are cause and effect or effect and cause and refutation of other possible or actual causes or effects. (165-166)
On the other hand, claim of value answers the questions “Is it good or bad? How bad? How good? Or what worth is it? Is it amoral or immoral? Are my values different from other people’s values or from the author’s values?”. Claims of value are usually backed up by value proofs or appeals to what the audience value and motivational proofs or appeals to what the audience wants. There are also analogies, quotations from authorities, induction, signs that something are either good or bad, and definitions. The possible organizational structures are applied criteria. These are established criteria or belief that is applied to the subject at issue. Other structures can be topical organization, narrative structure or narrations of real life or made-up stories to illustrate values in action. (168-171)

The last classification, one that is most used in the articles herein analyzed, is the claim of policy. Claim of policy seeks to answer the questions “What should we do? How should we act? What should future policy be? How can we solve this problem? What concrete course of action should we pursue to solve this problem?” Statements usually have words like should have, should be, or must have, must be. The types of proof usually associated with it are data and statistics, moral and common sense appeals, motivational appeals, literal analogies, value proofs, comparison of a small-scale effort to a large-scale effort, arguments from authority figures, cause to establish the origin of the problem, definition to clarify it and deduction to reach a common conclusion based on general principle. The possible organizational structure is problem-solution, visualization of how matters will be improved if the proposed solution is followed, anticipation of other possible solutions and what is wrong with them. Arguments usually end with an action step that directs the audience to take a particular course of action. (171-172)

Support
The second part of the Toulmin Model is the support, also known as data and grounds, proof, evidence, reasons, and premises. Support provides the factual information, opinion or reasoning about a claim that make it possible for readers to accept it. Support is always explicitly stated and are comprised of facts, opinions of experts or the author, and examples; real-life or made-up.

Support answers the question “What additional information does the author supply to convince me of this claim?”

Warrant

Warrants, on the other hand, are unstated assumptions, unstated premises, presuppositions, general principles, conventions of specific discourse, widely held values, commonly accepted beliefs, and appeals to human motives. They answer the question “Where is the author coming from?.”



Warrants can either be field independent or field-dependent. Field-independent warrants are those ideas or beliefs that cut-across groups. One does not have to be a specialist to be able to understand the warrant of the statement. Examples of such warrants are “Abortion is a choice or abortion is bad” “Freedom is a privilege not a right” “Terrorism is evil” and so forth. While field-dependent warrants are those principles or conventions unique or comprehensive only to specific groups. Examples of such warrants are….

Rebuttal

Rebuttal establishes what is wrong, invalid or unacceptable about an argument and may also present counterarguments or new arguments of an entirely different perspective. When writing or preparing an argument, the author is aware that his audience may have a different view in mind or they may not agree with his premise. The job of the author is to take not of these other opposing views and state them in his argument and provide proof of the contrary. The author has to justify why his claim is better over the others.

Backing

Backing are additional evidence to “back up” a warrant, whenever the audience is in danger of rejecting it.

Qualifier

Qualifiers are used or added to make a claim or statement sound less absolute and therefore more acceptable to the audience. Phrases like for some instead of everyone, we believe or we think instead of we know and statements like this is the case here, it might be different in other instances. Words like maybe, might, sometimes, most, supposing, among others may also be used.

These six parts do not follow any particular order. A rebuttal may come early on in the argumentative piece or it may appear midway or in the end, the same with the claim. A good argument will naturally have sound proof to back up the argument. Supports must be given in consideration of the claim being made. Qualifiers will spring up every now and then.

The Toulmin Model of Argumentative analysis is useful both in making oral and written arguments because it takes into account the audience. Even in written forms, the model recognizes the seemingly passive but actually active role of the audience in “good” arguments. Good arguments meaning the voice of the audience can be heard in the piece, not just that of the author’s. These are logical arguments where the claim is well-backed up.

Before we go straight to the discussion of results, it is important to keep in mind that this study is exploratory or descriptive rather than conclusive. It is assumed that more articles should have been analyzed for the finding to be conclusive and the author must have had at least some expertise in argumentative analysis to generate conclusions. As it is, even if I have engaged in arguments all my life, the Toulmin concept is fairly new to me. However, I hope I did some justice to the great philosopher.

Results and Discussion

Each newspaper was chunked into separate tables that reveal the different Toulmin parts of an argument in separate dates. The issue and the specific related issue are first identified followed by the claim. For each claim, the classification is also given whether it is a claim of fact, definition, cause, value, or policy. Indicators (B), (M), and (E) are also used to signify whether the claim was found in the beginning, middle, or end. The initial letters of the positions are taken. An argument will always have a central claim and several sub claims connected to it. The sub claims were also identified. Support or proofs were given in reference to the central claim and the sub claim. The corresponding number indicates which claim is being supported by the proof.

Table one shows a tabular analysis of the editorials of PDI.
Referring first to the issues raised, we can see the diversity of the issues tackled by the PDI editorials. In a week long period, it was able to tackle issues ranging from education, peace and order, politics, and even religion. Only the issues for July 7 and July 9 are similar in nature since both dealt with political appointees and ulterior motives in choosing such politicians. The July 7 issue was labeled “Political Appointees” while the July 9 was labeled “Government and election Tactics” based on the claim being made. The July 9 issue was almost explicit in claiming that PGMA is running for presidency and this is the reason why she asked Maceda to seat in the SMB board which Maceda later declined. In the Political Appointees issue, the editorial dwelt more on how PGMA has control over who gets appointed in the government not just the Supreme Court. The author cited many other names that were not just chosen in random or unanimously voted but influenced by the President’s preference. The specific related issue gave the topic of the editorials for each date.

For the claims, we can see in the table that for dates July 7,8 and 11, claims of policy were raised while claim of value for July 9 and claim of fact for July 10. Here, we can see that the editorials are critical of the government system of the country. They are scrutinizing the policies and suggesting counter-policies. Majority of the claims were also found at the end of the editorials. In fact, only the July 10 issue positioned the claim in the beginning, and this was the editorial where the writer has something good to say about what is being done. The claim was commending the CBCP for doing a good job with its secular community, while the rest of the issues were criticizing the government and the way it is running the country.

It should be noted that PDI has most number of words for the editorials covered by the study, approximately, 3,400 while People’s Journal comes in second with 2,577, then Philippine Star with 1,791, and Tempo with 1,531. These numbers include the dates and names of the publications plus the titles. From this, it might appear that PDI provides more backing for the claim it makes. However, as seen in the table, several sub claims are also generated by the PDI editorials. These sub claims, in a way, also serve as support for their central claim. In the July 8 issue, there are eight sub claims. The first five stated the problem and the cause of it which all had corresponding proofs. The last three claims were already stating what should be done, and since this is the author speaking from his point of view, no proof was given to back them up. This organizational structure conforms with the one postulated by Nancy Wood on claims of policy which usually take the form of problem-solution. Having described in detail the current state of education in the country by using facts and statistics, the author arrived at a conclusion in the end. His claim is that the department of education needs more budget to meet its current needs.

For the July 7 issue, the claim is that the President should not let her preference influence who gets appointed in the government. The proofs given to back up this claim was directed towards proving that GMA lets her motives influence who gets appointed in the government. Instances or actual events were given that indicate how the President always gets her way. For this, four cases were given. Here, the warrant is that the President, as the highest power in the country, must not be biased. Also, the SC being the highest court of the country, should be composed of men of moral integrity. Tinga, a political appointee is not supposed to be in the SC at this particular juncture. The author recognizes the voice of the audience by giving a rebuttal saying that “we do not think that a background in elective politics should disqualify someone from entering the SC but that this is not just the right time for Tinga to get in” or something of that sort. The author also cites examples of justices who were politicians before and how they performed or are performing well. But that is not the case here, the author is saying. He makes a sub claim by stating that Tinga will only bring more political rubble in the SC.

As for the July 9 issue, quotes from Haidee Yorac, Chairperson of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, was used to back up the claim that Maceda should not have been appointed by the president in the first place. The assumption here is that Yorac is a reliable authority. Yorac stated the reasons why Maceda is not a good choice, him being a friend of Edurdo Cojuanco who has amassed millions of pesos from the SMB. And then several sub claims are also given showing why Maceda is not a good choice and making claims about what the President should have considered. The author made a claim of fact by deducing what could be the ulterior motive of the president for appointing Maceda when he was once a political foe. The fact is clearly not absolute with the author phrasing it in a question form “Who says Ms. Macapagal is not running for the election?” The claim is qualified because not enough proof were given, just this one instance.

For the July 10 issue, there are seven sub claims supporting the central claim. Most of thess sub claims also act as value proofs meaning they are universal beliefs that should be taken as they are. A lift off from the CBCP statement was used to support the central claim that the Church is doing a good job in facing the sex scandal issues.

The July 11 issue tackled peace negotiation among the rebels and the government. The proofs are towards showing all the other parties including foreign governments are cooperative and pliant to the peace talks except the President who appears to be holding up the process. The president was shown in the proof to be dilly-dallying for some reason.

All the warrants are field-independent. Qualifiers were absent only in the issue on CBCP, the only positive editorial among the five.

For Table 2 which analyzes the editorials of Philippine Star, the issues are all economic or social problems; Military War Fare, Poverty, Drug Trafficking, and two issues on Terrorism. All of the claims are claims of policy and comes in the problem-solution, cause-effect format. The claims are either found in the end or near the end as signified by (M,E).

The proofs given for each claim were quotes from reliable sources, facts, statistics, and examples. For the July 7 issue, the proofs were directed toward showing how other countries who used to lag behind us are now providing us with our needed aircraft and the ineptness of our present military because they have depended much on the American soldiers. The problem was presented and then the claim or the solution. The issue on the criminalization of professional squatting followed the basic problem-solution format. It first referred to the alarm cause by the proliferation of squatting syndicates by Secretary Mike Defensor and several cases of professional squatting in places like UP and claiming how this is affects private property process. The proofs narrate the process the owners have to go through in reclaiming their lands without being slapped by administrative charges.

The third issue which was on anti-drug campaign of the government, sub-claims which also supported the claim that wiping off drug-trafficking takes patience are raised by saying that we need more evidence to imprison the drug barons. The proofs came from the statements of PGMA herself that say PNP must reveal the names of the drug traffickers, but that there is not enough evidence to incriminate the criminals. The central claim was basically derived from her statements. It is common sense knowledge that once the names are revealed without enough evidence to incriminate the criminals, then these criminals will be alerted enough and to go into hiding. The suggestion of the president will only worsen the situation. The claim was then arrived at.

The fourth and fifth issue which were both on terrorism illustrate the ill-effects brought by the armed rebels which is why they should be captured or pacified. The July 9 issue showed the kinds of evil done by the terrorists in the past and why they shouldn’t be easily forgiven. The July 10 issue, on the other hand, show why the government must capture the armed rebels now that appeared in other places in Mindanao instead of waiting for American help to come. The evils or damage caused by terrorists were shown enough to incite the military into action.

The warrants are all field-independent.




3,401 – PDI
1,791 – pstar
1,531 – Tempo
2,577 - Pjournal