Hør dog hvad de siger - Note-to-Self: Trials & Errors

does induce unforeseen aspects into the filling out of the questionnaire, making it on the one
hand significantly less standardized, on the other a more reflective, indeed intellectual, en-
terprise than we might imagine. Observe e.g. how this informant along with the interviewer
attempts to tackle the informant’s attitude towards the object of ‘purism’, i.e. keeping Danish
‘pure’ from foreign language influences.
Inf.: It depends very much on the point of view. If it is from a nationalistic point of view,
I think it is very negative.
Int.: And if it is from a democratic?
Inf.: Then it is something completely different. That’s it! If it is from a wish to include
as many as possible, then it is great, if it is to protect something authentically, uniquely
Danish, then it nauseates me.
Int.: But isn’t it hard to tell the difference?
Inf.: Extremely hard. That’s why it is so hard to relate to these things, and you get so
ambivalent. [Inf28, 83.00]
However, our main interest is not to explain misunderstandings unique to the individual ques-
tion or to analyze the pragmatics of the interview. Rather, we wish to hint at the explicit ar-
gument and the implicit presuppositions that Danes draw upon when they are faced with the
challenge of constructing an appropriate attitude towards English in an interview.
The use of arguments
Stephen Toulmin in his classic book on rhetoric (1958 [1999]) outlines the layout of an argu-
ment as in essence comprised of three parts. The claim is “the conclusion whose merits we are
seeking to establish”. The data are “the facts we appeal to as the foundation for the claim”
(ibid. 97). These two parts are immediately recognizable. Crucial, however, to Toulmin’s mo-
del is the third part of the argument, the warrant, i.e. the often implicit, universally applicable
statement that joins the data to the claim. If I claim that Socrates is mortal on the basis of the
data that Socrates is a man, my warrant is that all men are mortal. Or using an example from
the excerpts above, if I claim it is an advantage to use English, on the basis of the data that
Scandinavian can cause problems, it is on the warrant(s) that 1) English does not cause pro-
blems, and 2) problems in a conversation is a thing to be avoided. As can readily be observed,
warrants can themselves be treated as claims in new arguments, i.e. we could make it a point
in case that ‘English does not pose problems’ or the opposite. The significant difference bet-
ween claim and warrant is one of focus. When a proposition is treated as claim it is
foregrounded and made explicitly questionable, indeed arguable. When it is treated as war-
rant, it is backgrounded and treated as if it was an established fact.
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