Conceding and Dismissing

Conceding & Dismissing

Conceding a point to your opponent is not necessarily a sign of weakness in argumentation. Your position, in the eyes of the reader, may actually be strengthened by your willingness to concede points to your opponent’s argument. Very often, your own argument can only increase in status and persuasiveness if you fully acknowledge the quality of the opposing and alternative views which provide its context.

Let’s look at the role of connectors in this process. There are a few connectors which are actually termed ‘concessive’ because they are used to concede a point before the speaker goes on to relate an action or opinion which is in some ways ‘contrary’ or opposed to that point. This is easier to explain through example. The connectors in question are although, though, while and whereas; also: in spite of, despite, nevertheless, however and but - quite a few.

Most of the time, they will feature at the head of subordinate clauses, so that the main clause will feature the contrary point or view
E.g.:

	Although Marx was German, he wrote most of his important work in England.
	or
	While few people in the U.K. actually attend Church regularly, the
	great majority believe there is a god.

One thing to note is that it is rarely the author who features in the concessive clause - but we will come to that shortly. We’ll look now at 2 aspects of the use of markers of concession:

•	how they serve the purpose of conceding a point, perhaps on route to
	dismissing an alternative view, &
•	how the placement of the subordinate clause they head can affect the
	dynamics of the text.

Conceding a point

TASK: Read the following text on cross-cultural communication (from a text by Dean Barnlund: 1978). Make a note of each point at which you think the writer is signalling concession, but at the same time pointing out the limitations of a point or perspective.

On Cross-cultural Communication

Recently, people of dissimilar cultural backgrounds have found themselves in academic, business and political situations in which they have been forced to communicate, and often to cooperate, with each other. Some people, of course, have been more successful at communicating across cultures than others. What is it that they have learned about how to communicate effectively with someone from another culture?

There are three ways in which people become aware of new cultures: through studying the language and talking to people who speak it; through study of the history of the economics, government, religion and aesthetics of society; and by examining the dynamics of culture itself - the ways in which people of a culture communicate with each other.

The study of language is, of course, essential to intercultural learning and communication; we have to learn to understand what is being said and to make ourselves understood. But, as many of us have seen, simply knowing a language does not mean we are always able to communicate with speakers of that language.

Studying the social structures, history, religion and abstract values of a culture is helpful to understanding the culture, but it provides a student with only an abstract understanding of a culture. Knowledge of the economic policy, history of art and literature of the United States, for example, is useful knowledge, but it will do very little to explain interaction of family members, forms of address and dating and marriage customs in America - very important aspects of any culture.

As the famous anthropologist Edward Hall has said, ‘Culture is communication’. In order to study and understand a culture, we must examine its communicative style: how members of a culture interact.

There are several things to look at when looking at communicative
style: .....

From: Communication: the context of change

[See Comments]

Subordination & concession: advanced signposting with ‘although’

Writers/speakers invariably have the choice of offering prior notice of the logical relationship between (e.g.) 2 propositions. We shall relate this to the point we made earlier about the Given-New ‘wave’ of information, as in:

TASK: Compare the 2 statements below:
Q. Which version offers the additional benefit to the reader/listener of signalling in advance the type of logical relationship being made ?:

1) ‘There is no material evidence to connect the suspect with the crime, although it is clear from the investigation that the suspect had a very strong motive for murdering the deceased.’

2) ‘Although it is clear from the investigation that the suspect had a very strong motive for murdering the deceased, there is no material evidence to connect him with the crime.’

[See Comments]

Let’s look again at the given-new principle illustrated through the ‘wave’ model:

The 'wave' model

Conceding points through subordination [- WHY ?!]

We have discussed the value of ‘fronting’ the subordinate clause, to give end-focus to the main clause - i.e. to the main point you want to make, assuming you've chosen the main clause to showcase that point. This is, we suggest, an important feature of how we put such grammatical devices to ‘rhetorical’ purpose, how we make the grammar serve a 'dynamic' communicative function. In the case of a concessive relationship, the subordination - and its fronting - also reveal a great deal about the ‘stance’ or position of the speaker/writer - about the message they want to get across to the listener/reader.

Let’s look at the following, final exercise in this section:

TASK: The 2 statements used earlier are re-printed below, with one important change: the clauses are reversed, but in each case the sentence begins with ‘Although’.
Q. Can you identify the ‘stance’ of the speaker in each case, in terms of whether they are making a statement for the Defence or for the Prosecution:

1) ‘Although there is no material evidence to connect X with the crime, it is clear from the investigation that he had a very strong motive for murdering the deceased’

2) ‘Although it is clear from the investigation that X had a very strong motive for murdering the deceased, there is no material evidence to connect him with the crime’

Before checking the Comments, explain to yourself the reason for your choices.

For more on Concession, see the relevant material on Language delicacy