ABSTRACT

This paper proposes an extension of Fletcher and Huff’s (1990) argument mapping technique, which focuses on an examination of individual arguments, to depict the broader argumentative terrain of a theoretical discourse. To illustrate the utility of argument mapping as a literature review technique, we demonstrate an application of this approach to the domain of Technology Frames of Reference (TFR) research. We then compare the insights derived from this approach to those derived from a more traditional literature review of this domain. Findings of this comparison suggest that an argument-centred approach could contribute the following new insights into a theoretical domain: (1) provide a means of weighting contributions to a theoretical discourse by depicting these contributions in terms of levels of argumentation; (2) identify new “types” of argument-centred gaps in the literature; (3) offer a structural and progressive view of theory development in a particular domain that could be used to could be used to link and compare insights derived from competing theoretical lenses; and (4) propose a closer linkage between theory testing and theory building by focusing the testing on “arguable” aspects of a theoretical claim.

摘要

本文提出了对 Fletcher 和 Huff (1990) 论证映射技术的扩展，该技术侧重于对单个论证的检查，以描绘理论话语的更广泛的论证领域。为了说明参数映射作为文献综述技术的效用，我们展示了这种方法在技术参考框架 (TFR) 研究领域的应用。然后，我们将从这种方法得出的见解与从该领域更传统的文献综述中得出的见解进行比较。这种比较的结果表明，以论证为中心的方法可以为理论领域提供以下新见解：（1）通过根据论证水平描述这些贡献，提供一种加权对理论话语的贡献的方法；(2) 识别文献中以争论为中心的新“类型”；(3) 提供特定领域理论发展的结构性和渐进式观点，可用于链接和比较来自竞争理论视角的见解；(4) 通过将测试集中在理论主张的“可论证”方面，提出理论测试和理论构建之间更紧密的联系。