Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing - Volume 42, Issue 2, 2020

Introduction to special issue on political debate

This special issue is dedicated to the retirement of former editor in chief of the Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing Ton van Haaften. It presents an investigation of some aspects of the communicative activity type ‘political debate’ from both a discourse and a historical angle. A special focus is put on Dutch parliamentary debate, of which it is shown that its norms and conventions originate from nineteenth century parliamentary discussions on how to conduct such a debate. Ever since, the strategy of attacking politicians personally has both been employed for rhetorical purposes and fiercely criticized. It was also the (late) nineteenth century when a rhetorical style was introduced in politics, i.e. by former pastor and politician Abraham Kuyper, whose famous ‘Maranatha’ speech to his followers is analyzed for its rhetorical features. Today, even more than in Kuyper’s days, politicians claim to speak on behalf of ‘the people’. An inventory of the ways in which populist politician Geert Wilders presents his appeals to the people shows four stylistic features that may have a strategic function.

Strategic manoeuvring in plenary debates in the Second Chamber of Dutch Parliament

The (extended) pragma-dialectical argumentation theory assumes that people engaged in argumentative discourse manoeuvre strategically. In argumentative reality, the strategic manoeuvring is carried out within specific argumentative activity types. In this paper it is argued that pragma-dialectics offers a fruitful approach to study political debate. The approach and its added value are discussed and illustrated on the basis of a specific type of political debate in a specific argumentative activity type: the plenary debate in the Second Chamber of Dutch Parliament.

‘Parasitic Politics’. Thorbecke and Personal Attacks in the Dutch Lower House

This contribution uses a famous personal attack in Dutch parliamentary history to discuss ad hominem in the context of the activity type of parliamentary debating. The case is Thorbecke, liberal leader and most prominent defender of pure parliamentary discussion, vs the then Prime Minister Van Hall, in December 1860. Thorbecke rejected Van Hall’s opportunist policies but he also disliked him intensely. His personal feelings transpired in his diatribe against Van Hall’s ‘parasitic politics’. Thorbecke’s adherents applauded what they considered a principled attack, Van Hall’s supporters criticized the vehement personal attack. The attack virtually ended the discussion, and it was the culmination of Thorbecke’s vendetta against Van Hall. It is hard to deny that Thorbecke’s diatribe was a personal attack, since he disregarded the arguments of his opponent and discredited him by attacking his personal credibility, but the interpretation of such a political case will always remain open to discussion.

‘Maranatha’: Kuyper is coming! From sermon to party speech: Abraham Kuyper’s eloquence

In this article, we present a rhetorical-historical analysis of the speech Maranatha by Dutch politician and former pastor Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper’s style of speech stands out in nineteenth century Dutch political culture, as it is generally more expressive and aimed at the public compared to the pragmatic and legal style of his colleagues in Parliament. Through close reading of the speech Maranatha, we show how Kuyper’s political rhetoric was influenced by various rhetorical elocutio and pathos strategies from pulpit oratory that he learned during his time as a pastor. By reconstructing the professors, academic tradition and homiletic manuals that influenced Kuyper’s theological education, we have determined four main advices for pulpit oratory: 1) choose one main theme that is well known, 2) create a feeling of unity through ‘venturing’ into the public, 3) make sure the speech is understandable to a large public and 4) use stylistic pathos figures in order to move the audience. Kuyper employs all four advices in Maranatha for the purpose of creating a sense of unity within his audience.

The Personal Attack as Essential Characteristic of Parliamentary Debating. An Analysis on the Basis of the History of ‘Unparliamentary Language’ in the Dutch Lower House

Personal attacks abound in Dutch parliamentary history. This article considers personal insults and character attacks as an intrinsic part of parliamentary debate. But how widespread is the phenomenon? What forms of ad hominem arguments can be distinguished in the history of Dutch parliamentary debate? When and to what extent do parliamentarians deem the abusive attack acceptable? Drawing on a rich source of language ruled to be unparliamentary in Dutch parliament from 1934 until 2001, the article will reflect on the complicated nature of personal attacks within the context of parliaments: often condemned as indecent, yet appreciated as a cunning debating strategy.

Remarks about the person in Thorbecke’s Second Chamber

There is always a risk in parliamentary politics that objective debate will change into personal debate and conflict. On the one hand, orators can choose to launch a personal verbal attack to their opponents. On the other hand, opponents can interpret verbal arguments as a personal attack, even if these words were not meant that way. In the most extreme cases personal honour is damaged and needs to be repaired through other means, including a physical duel. Compared to other young parliaments, the nineteenth century Dutch ‘Second Chamber’ (Tweede Kamer) had a quiet and calm reputation. How did Dutch Members of Parliament handle their emotions in confrontations that risked to become personal? How did the most influential politician, J.R. Thorbecke, deal with these confrontations? Which rules and rituals were at the disposal of MPs to protect themselves against personal politics? And what could contemporary parliamentary debate learn from these Dutch nineteenth-century examples? To find asnwers to these questions, this article explores personal politics in Thorbecke’s Second Chamber.

‘I speak on behalf of millions of Dutch people’: Wilders’ presentation of the populist argument in political debate

This study explores the ways in which the Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders formulates populist arguments, i.e. the argument by which it is claimed that if many people hold a certain standpoint, this standpoint should be accepted. A corpus study of 27 texts taken from the website of Wilders’ political party (www.pvv.nl) reveals four characteristics of this presentation, which show a significant deviation of the way this type of argument is described in the handbooks: 1) absence of indicators, 2) implicit standpoint, 3) a wide range of verbs to indicate what ‘the people’ think or belief, 4) use of a construction in which the speaker functions as a mouthpiece (‘in the name of the people I say’). We claim that these characteristics makes a populist argument hard to identify and hypothesize that they may function as a disguised way for presenting a fallacious populist argument.