Fabrizio Macagno on “Rhetorical questions and the burden of answering”

Rhetorical questions (RQs) present a challenge for pragmatic, semantic, and rhetorical theories. They are questions, but they do not seek information or even request an answer. They convey a viewpoint, but in a non-assertive way. More importantly, the rhetorical interpretation is determined based on contextual considerations. What are they, then, and what makes a question rhetorical? This paper proposes a dialectical perspective in which RQs are regarded as a family of different strategies for affecting the Addressee’s commitments. RQs are defined according to 13 distinct scenarios, combining a set of preconditions – drawn from the nature and type of the Addressee’s commitments and the type of expected answer – with their effects. These effects consist of distinct types of attempts to alter the interlocutor’s commitments and are explained as the implicit conclusions of different kinds of implicit arguments. On this dialectical approach, RQs are requests for commitments that place on the addressee the burden of rejecting them.

Fabrizio Macagno (University of Lisbon)

To join the session on Teams, please get in touch with Maria Grazia Rossi (mgrazia.rossi@fcsh.unl.pt).

This event is part of the ArgLab Research Colloquium organised by Maria Grazia Rossi, Giulia Terzian and Alberto Oya at the Laboratory of Argumentation, Cognition and Language of the NOVA Institute of Philosophy. For any inquiries, please contact Maria Grazia, Giulia or Alberto.