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Exploring TED Speakers’ Narrative Positioning from a Strategic Maneuvering Perspective: A Single Case Study from Winch’s (2014) TED Talk

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Abstract

TED Talks are still an unexplored genre of argumentation in which narrative arguments are often used in TED speakers’ strategic maneuvering to support a standpoint. In the present study, I combine the constructs of narrative positioning (NP) and strategic maneuvering (SM) to offer a conceptualization of how narrative is used in pragmatic argumentation as well as provide an exemplary analysis of a specific case of narrative arguments that were used in Winch’s (How to practice emotional first aid. https://www.ted.com/talks/guy_winch_the_case_for_emotional_hygiene.2014, 2014) TED Talk. The proposed integration aims to provide a theoretical framework and empirical tools for reconstructing narrative arguments through connecting the underlying formal structure of narrative with aspects of TED speakers’ strategic maneuvering. Drawing on NP and SM constructs, the critical analysis explores how Winch’s narratives or “small stories” were strategically manipulated to support his stance with regard to the importance of mental health and to examine whether or not the use of narrative arguments as argumentation moves helped to enhance the dialectical reasonableness and rhetorical effectiveness of Winch’s argument. The analysis shows that the macro context and the knowledge gap between TED speakers and the audience makes the use of narrative arguments extremely effective. Although narrative arguments often receive criticism about their validity in providing sufficient evidence for a standpoint, their dialectical power lies in the flexibility of describing events in different fashions to draw pragmatic inferences that support the speaker’s stance. The study fills an important gap in the literature as it integrates recent approaches in narrative theory in the reconstruction and evaluation of narrative arguments in TED Talks.

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Notes

  1. Small stories are defined as “a gamut of under‐represented and “a‐typical” narrative activities, such as tellings of ongoing events, future or hypothetical events, shared (known) events, but also allusions to tellings, deferrals of tellings, and refusals to tell”. (Georgakopoulou 2006, p.130).

  2. Although proving that TED Talks are argumentative in nature are beyond the scope of the study, I argue that the talks represent many argumentative features that need to be further explored.

  3. Narrative positioning theory coincides with pragma-dialectics at a much deeper level if the three meta- theoretical principles of functionalization, socialization and externalization are considered (van Eemeren 2018, pp. 19–28).

  4. For further details, see van Eemeren (2010) and van Eemeren and Houtlosser (1999)

  5. Carranza (2015, p. 66) wrote, “the main ways in which narrating and arguing combine are those in which the expression of an argumentative position calls for some evidence to back it up and make it acceptable; in that case, the story provides the relevant support (i.e., the evidence). The claim, whose formulation may precede or follow the narrative text, is then the defended “story thesis”.

  6. According to the Labovian (1972, p. 360) model of narrative structure, narrative is a method of recapitulating past experience by matching a verbal sequence of clauses to the sequence of events which actually occurred. Labov (1972, pp. 360–363) maintained that narrative clauses are characteristically ordered in temporal sequence and if the order is reversed, it will result in a change in the original semantic interpretation. For example, ‘‘I punched this boy/and he punched me’’ implies a different sequence of events than ‘‘this boy punched me/and I punched him’’, and thus, has a different meaning. A ‘minimal narrative’ like the two about punching, contains two narrative clauses (emphasis mine).

  7. For a more comprehensive discussion of the pragma-dialectical code of conduct for reasonable argumentation and the prevention of fallacies, see van Eemeren (2018, pp. 62–69).

  8. The video and script of the talk were retrieved from TED Talk YouTube channel. See the link https://www.ted.com/talks/guy_winch_the_case_for_emotional_hygiene (Winch 2014).

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  1. King AbdulAziz University, Rabigh branch, Rabigh, Saudi Arabia

    Nahla Nadeem

  2. Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

    Nahla Nadeem

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Nadeem, N. Exploring TED Speakers’ Narrative Positioning from a Strategic Maneuvering Perspective: A Single Case Study from Winch’s (2014) TED Talk. Argumentation 37, 437–472 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-023-09597-7

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