Origins and Development of the Conversational Argument Coding Scheme

Abstract

This article discusses the conceptual and methodological origins of the Conversational Argument Coding Scheme (CACS). The article first reviews the impulse for development of this content analysis scheme as part of structuration theory work in communication during the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially within the structuration approach to argument in group deliberations. We also position those conceptual efforts in the context of other scholarship at that time on argument in varied forms of social interaction. We next treat three theoretical perspectives on argument that undergird the CACS, including why and how they are integrated in it. Moreover, we note operational developments that occurred after initial formulation of the CACS and outcomes that are offered in the other articles in this issue. More precisely, we discuss and elaborate on various argument structures (i.e., different forms of completed arguments) and argument sequences (i.e., act-to-act patterns of argument behaviors). Finally, we conclude with observations regarding the origins, development, and possible future development of the CACS.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank Mark Aakhus and Dennis Gouran for their helpful comments and careful editing on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

¹The CSSA paper by Seibold, McPhee, and Poole (1980) presaged related ST papers by McPhee and Poole (1980) and by Poole (1980) at the conference of the Speech Communication Association in New York later that year.

²In 1986 Tanita Ratledge completed her dissertation at the University of Southern California. In that research she assessed the CASC from a structurational stance.

³For a copy of the 1992 CACS coding manual, contact Dan Canary at Arizona State University, e-mail [email protected], phone [phone].

⁴The effects due to sex were that female confederates were perceived as more competent than male confederates when using complex arguments to discuss unimportant issues. However, due to the crossed interaction effect involving argument complexity and issue importance, we are not comfortable in concluding that women are seen generally as more competent than men when using complex arguments (see also, Weger & Canary, 1991, on sex differences).