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Review of “The Sage handbook of persuasion: Developments in theory and practice (2nd edition)”

About ten years after The persuasion handbook: Developments in theory and practice (Dillard & Pfau, 2002), James Dillard and Lijiang Shen publish an updated, new version. In their SAGE Handbook of persuasion, they host a collection of 23 chapters that deal with fundamental issues in persuasion, that present a panorama of important theories and perspectives, and that demonstrate the importance of persuasion in diverse contexts and settings. […] Finally, how does this book relate to other books? For practical advice on how to design messages, Persuasive messages: The process of influence by William Benoit and Pamela Benoit (reviewed in this journal: Hornikx, 2008), nicely complements this handbook. For precise avenues that future research should focus on, Persuasion by Daniel O’Keefe (also reviewed in this journal: Hornikx, 2003) is excellent reading, but it does not outline the important contexts and settings in which persuasion plays a role, such as politics, health, and technology. In the broad spectrum of persuasion books on offer, this SAGE Handbook of persuasion is among the most prominent ones: written by some of the best scholars in the field, it covers a wide range of topics in a concise manner.

  • Hornikx, J. (2013). Review of “The Sage handbook of persuasion: Developments in theory and practice (2nd edition)” by James Dillard and Lijiang Shen. Information Design Journal, 20 (2), 187-189. [link]
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Boekbespreking: drogredenen en redelijkheidsoordelen

Drogredenen – vaak beschouwd als argumenten die valide of deugdelijk lijken maar het niet zijn – zijn een klassiek object van studie in de argumentatieleer. In de kennis die is opgedaan sinds Aristoteles, Locke en Hamblin ontbrak lang het perspectief van ontvangers van drogredenen. Hoe kijken gewone taalgebruikers naar drogredenen? Zien zij drogredenen ook als onredelijke argumenten? Deze laatste vraag heeft Frans van Eemeren, Bart Garssen en Bert Meuffels zo’n tien jaar beziggehouden. Tien jaar van empirisch onderzoek bij meer dan 1900 proefpersonen, verdeeld over meer dan 50 experimenten. Na publicaties over enkele van deze experimenten, waaronder uiteraard ook in Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, was het wachten op een overzicht. Met “Fallacies and judgments of reasonableness” wordt dat wachten beloond. In een compacte en heldere stijl schetsen de drie auteurs de achtergrond van het onderzoeksprogramma, beschrijven ze de kenmerken van de studies en vatten ze de bevindingen kernachtig samen.

  • Hornikx, J. (2011). Bespreking van: Frans H. van Eemeren, Bart Garssen en Bert Meuffels (2009). Fallacies and judgments of reasonableness: Empirical research concerning the pragma-dialectical discussion rules. Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, 33 (2), 193-195. [pdf]
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Review of “Fallacies and judgments of reasonableness: Empirical research concerning the pragma-dialectical discussion rules”

One of the core concepts in argumentation theory are fallacies, often considered to be arguments that seem valid but that are invalid. Argumentation scholars and philosophers, such as Aristotle, Locke and Hamblin, have approached fallacies from a theoretical and non-empirical perspective. Such an approach has enabled the field of argumentation theory to intensively reflect on the concept of fallacies. A disadvantage of such an approach, however, is that it is naturally limited to the views and knowledge of argumentation theorists themselves. How would ordinary language users respond to fallacies? Would these laymen also consider fallacies to be unreasonable? Frans van Eemeren, Bart Garssen and Bert Meuffels have addressed this question by conducting an impressive set of experiments in the course of 10 years, involving more than 1900 participants. In Fallacies and judgments of reasonableness, they introduce these studies, present their results, and conclude that laymen’s conceptions of reasonableness are very similar to the theoretical conceptions of reasonableness in their own pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation.

  • Hornikx, J. (2010). Review of “Fallacies and judgments of reasonableness: Empirical research concerning the pragma-dialectical discussion rules” by Frans H. van Eemeren, Bart Garssen and Bert Meuffels. Information Design Journal, 18 (2), 175-177. [pdf]
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Bespreking van “Advertising research – message, medium and context”

In Advertising research: Message, medium and context hebben Patrick de Pelsmacker en Nathalie Dens de 38 beste bijdragen geselecteerd uit de lezingen op de “International Conference on Research in Advertising” (ICORIA) in 2008 in Antwerpen. Het boek geeft een prachtig overzicht van recente empirische onderzoeken op het gebied van reclame. De bijdragen zijn ingedeeld in drie thema’s: het kan gaan om het effect van inhoudelijke keuzes in advertenties (bijvoorbeeld retorische figuren), om de invloed van het medium (bijvoorbeeld banners op websites) en om de rol van de context (bijvoorbeeld tv-programma’s om reclame heen).

  • Hornikx, J. (2009). Waarom geloven mensen reclame? Bespreking van: De Pelsmacker & Dens (2009). Advertising research – message, medium and context. Tekstblad, 15 (5/6), 52-53. [pdf]
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Review of “Persuasive messages: The process of influence”

We encounter persuasive messages everywhere at every moment of the day: in the newspaper in the morning, on television during lunch, at a business meeting in the afternoon, or around the dinner table with our families. Not only are we targets of other people’s attempts to persuade us, we also try to persuade other people. Being familiar with persuasion, however, does not make us experts in the art of persuasion already. There is much to learn about the process of influence, about the messages that are most likely to be effective, and about the factors that we should pay attention to. Persuasive messages: The process of influence introduces its readers to these matters. The authors of this textbook, William and Pamela Benoit, call it “a guide to successful persuasion” (xii). The authors want to offer their readers practical advice on designing persuasive messages. They have succeeded in their mission, in particular because their advice is firmly grounded in classic and current theories, and in empirical research findings.

  • Hornikx, J. (2008). Review of “Persuasive messages: The process of influence” by William Benoit and Pamela Benoit. Information Design Journal, 16 (2), 159-161. [pdf]
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Review of “Advertising as multilingual communication”

‘Rouges à lèvres’ in a German advertisement for lipsticks, Italian accents in a voice-over in a Dutch television commercial, English links on a Japanese website. With the increase in the number of multilingual advertisements and studies relating to their use and effects, the need for an insightful account of this domain has also increased. Advertising as multilingual communication has been anticipated by researchers in the field, and will certainly not disappoint them. Helen Kelly-Holmes’ book explains in a very well-written way how advertising discourse uses foreign languages – on the one end of a continuum – as a means of communication with speakers of a minority language in a country or – on the other end – as a linguistic symbol that creates positive associations in the minds of the receivers of the advertisement. Advertising as multilingual communication is well structured around a few domains in which multilingual advertising occurs, and benefits from a rich collection of examples that the author has gathered from a variety of media and sources over a number of years.

  • Hornikx, J. (2006). Review of “Advertising as multilingual communication” by Helen Kelly-Holmes. Communications, The European Journal of Communication Research, 31 (2), 247-249. [pdf]
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Compte rendu de “Introduction aux théories de la communication”

Dans leur deuxième édition de l’Introduction aux théories de la communication, Jean-Pierre Meunier et Daniel Peraya proposent un cadre théorique pour l’analyse des messages audio-scripto-visuels dans une approche sémio-pragmatique et sémio-cognitive. C’est dans cette approche pluridisciplinaire que réside la plus grande richesse de cet ouvrage, qui est destiné aux enseignants, pédagogues et autres chercheurs dans le domaine des sciences de l’information et de la communication en général, mais aussi de la pragmatique, de la sémiologique et de l’éducation en particulier. Le lecteur appréciera également la façon dont les diverses théories sont présentées, discutées et integrées. Dans la deuxième partie du livre, où les messages audio-scripto-visuels sont analysés, les auteurs refèrent systématiquement aux théories de la première partie. La matière dont traite l’ouvrage est complexe, Meunier et Peraya le démontrent à plusieurs reprises. Toutefois, en ouvrant régulièrement des parenthèses certes intéressantes, les auteurs n’ont pas toujours simplifié la lecture de l’ouvrage volumineux. Par contre, les études de cas et le guide pour l’analyse des messages médiatiques, donné en annexe, sont très informatifs.

  • Hornikx, J. (2005). Compte rendu de “Introduction aux théories de la communication: analyse sémio-pragmatique de la communication médiatique” par Jean-Pierre Meunier et Daniel Peraya. Studies in Communication Sciences, 5 (1), 238-239. [pdf]
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Aankondiging van “Argumentation in practice”

‘Argumentation in practice’ brengt onder redactie van Frans H. van Eemeren en Peter Houtlosser een verzameling bijdragen bij elkaar van hedendaags onderzoek naar argumentatie in de praktijk. Sinds de tweede helft van de vorige eeuw heeft de argumentatietheorie zich tot een bloeiend, interdisciplinair en internationaal wetenschapsgebied ontwikkeld. In het begin, zo betogen de redacteuren in hun voorwoord, lag de nadruk op het bouwen van theorieën, benaderingswijzen en modellen. Vanaf de jaren 80 heeft die aandacht zich gedeeltelijk verlegd naar de praktijk van argumentatie. Hoe ziet argumentatie er in het dagelijkse leven uit? Hoe kan de argumentatietheorie een bijdrage leveren aan het analyseren van het discours op het gebied van politiek, wetenschap en onderhandelingen?

  • Hornikx, J. (2005). Aankondiging van: Frans H. van Eemeren en Peter Houtlosser (red.) (2005). Argumentation in practice. Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, 27 (4), 336-337. [pdf]
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Review of “Persuasion: theory & research”

In this second edition of Persuasion: theory & research, Daniel O’Keefe gives a state-of-the-art overview of theories and research in the field of persuasion. The author has succeeded in providing an introductory text for (under)graduate students that discusses classic and more current theoretical perspectives that have been or will be prominent for the study of persuasive effects (chapters 2-6).

  • Hornikx, J. (2003). Review of “Persuasion: theory & research (2nd edition)” by Daniel O’Keefe. Document Design, 4 (3), 284-287. [pdf]