“You want me to be wrong” : Expert ethos, (de-)legitimation, and ethotic straw men as discursive resources for conspiracy theories
BLE-BLL
- Oswald, Steve ORCID University of Fribourg
- Herman, Thierry ORCID University of Neuchâtel
- 01.12.2022
Published in:
- Conspiracy Theory Discourses. - John Benjamins Publishing Company. - 2022, vol. 98, Chapter 5, p. 99-120
Rhetoric
Argumentation
Ethos
Ethotic straw man
Legitimation
De-legitimation
Conspiracy
Raoult
Expertise
English
This chapter discusses features of conspiratorial discourse related to the
representation of social actors through the lens of rhetorical and argumentative
analysis. Specifically, it identifies a previously undocumented variant of the straw
man fallacy (a misrepresentation of an opponent’s position meant to refute it more
easily), namely the ethotic straw man, which unscrupulous arguers can use to
legitimate their own credibility and undermine their opponents’, thereby evading
scientific discussion of relevant issues. A TV-interview with French virologist
Didier Raoult, who championed hydroxychloroquine-based treatments in the early
months of the COVID-19 pandemic, is taken as a case in point to explain why such
quasi-populistic discourse, prominently centred on questions of ethos, fits
conspiratorial narratives so well
representation of social actors through the lens of rhetorical and argumentative
analysis. Specifically, it identifies a previously undocumented variant of the straw
man fallacy (a misrepresentation of an opponent’s position meant to refute it more
easily), namely the ethotic straw man, which unscrupulous arguers can use to
legitimate their own credibility and undermine their opponents’, thereby evading
scientific discussion of relevant issues. A TV-interview with French virologist
Didier Raoult, who championed hydroxychloroquine-based treatments in the early
months of the COVID-19 pandemic, is taken as a case in point to explain why such
quasi-populistic discourse, prominently centred on questions of ethos, fits
conspiratorial narratives so well
- Faculty
- Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines
- Department
- Département d'anglais
- Language
-
- English
- Classification
- Language, linguistics
- License
- License undefined
- Open access status
- green
- Identifiers
-
- DOI 10.1075/dapsac.98.05her
- ISSN 1569-9463
- ISBN 9789027212702
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/323782
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