This paper is part of an ongoing PhD research on the non standard - - PDF document

This paper is part of an ongoing PhD research on the non standard modal expressions as argumentative indicators within the project “Modality in Argumentation. A semantico- argumentative study of predictions in Italian economic- financial newspapers” financed by Swiss National Science Foundation and supervised by prof. Andrea Rocci. Why are economic - financial news interesting from argumentative point of view? Financial discourse, being oriented towards the decision making of investors, is, for the most part,

• vertly or covertly argumentative. The readers of economic-financial newspaper articles attempt not
• nly to understand what has happened in the market, but also to understand how past and present

events can affect market trends. Thus, the demand of information in finance is oriented towards forecasting of future events. This particularity distinguishes this discourse genre from other discourse domains (politics, sport, crime) in which the reader is concerned mostly with what has happened; in finance, people are concerned mostly with what is going to happen. But, the future is

• uncertain. The uncertainty in finance is due to two factors:

 the incompleteness of information concerning the occurrence of future events  the private, undisclosed information available only to insiders. Communicating this uncertainty and the conditions of validity of predictions is particularly problematic in these journalistic texts, which address a public of semi-experts and lay people. Not

• nly the communication, but also the argumentative support of predictions turn out to be

problematic because of the highly technical nature of economic forecasting. In economic –financial press we can distinguish between formal economic forecasting – based on systematic statistical methods and economic theory and in this case the argumentation mostly used to support this kind

• f prediction is causal. We have also a predictions based on less scientifically establish techniques

(technical analysis – which forecast the future direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume) as well as prediction based on signs or signals or partially disclosures came out from the company. In this case the argumentation involves also a symptomatic component along with the causal. Several features of this discourse genre pose a challenge to argumentative reconstruction. Firstly, it is difficult to identify the authors of these texts with the protagonist since both the predictive perspectives and the arguments supporting them are rarely explicitly endorsed by the journalist and tend to be attributed to other subjects: financial analysts, money managers, bankers and other named or unnamed experts and insiders. In fact, diluting the argumentative responsibility, the journalists present their discourse as informative rather than persuasive. Secondly, the kind of epistemic modality modifying the predictions is often limited to bare possibility and so that they not even qualify as weakly asserted standpoints.

Thirdly, the arguments supporting the predictions are succinctly evoked rather than expounded and very often include pointers to “black boxes” standing for various forms of expert reasoning (e.g. the use of mathematical models) that are not made available to the readers. As stated by Sally Jackson ‘‘Black box argument’’ (Sally Jackson 2008) is a metaphor for modular components of argumentative discussion that are, within a particular discussion, not open to expansion).The black box is on the

• ne hand, something like a pre-established premise in a discussion, something everyone can be

assumed to have already accepted”. It is, on the other hand a place where reasoning is no longer

• pen to challenge or to close inspection.

I argue that independently of the fact that the lack of direct commitment on the part of the journalist separate financial news from other typically argumentative genre (editorials) and makes them difficult to evaluate as act of argumentation, financial news are characterized by an important presence of explicit argumentation supporting predictions and also recommendations. The analysis I am going to present illustrates that it is possible to attribute the role of protagonist to the journalist and reconstruct economic-financial articles in terms of a critical discussion

• respectively. The analysis shows in particular, the way in which the journalist strategically manages

the reporting voices to support his standpoint. The present text that you can find in your handout is an extract of a corpus composed of the complete April 2006 editions of three Italian economic- financial daily newspapers: Il Sole 24 ore, Italia Oggi e Milano Finanza. The standpoint advanced is a directive speech act of recommendation: “The investors should use the next peak to make a profit and begin reorganizing the portfolios”. The standpoint is not attributed neither to financial analysts nor to other source. It is advanced by the journalist, so he performs the role of protagonist. Notice that the phrase (per questo) for this reason” preceding the recommendation is a typical argumentative indicator of an advancing of a standpoint. At the beginning of the text, the journalist introduces two opposite standpoints through the use of the proposition “ma” (but): Merger and acquisitions activities are sustaining the actual good lists performance, but in a few months the draining of the international liquidity could impose the stop of the increasing Stock Exchange. The linguistic indicator ma (but) presupposes two arguments one argument p for a conclusion r and another argument q for a conclusion non r. Adopting this analysis to our case the statement the draining of the international liquidity could impose the stop of the increasing Stock Exchange is a stronger argument for a conclusion that it is presumable the start of a sideway phase (it means a market that moves in a narrow range day after day but remains flat over

the medium term). If you look at the reconstruction the statement about the merger and acquisition

activities is presented as a counter argument to it is presumable the start if a sideways phase. The

journalist anticipates the doubt of a virtual antagonist “It is doubtful that the investors should use the next peak to make a profit and begin reorganizing the portfolios” . In support of this doubt we have the argument that “Merger and acquisitions are sustaining the actual good lists performance which is supported in its turn by the argument from expert opinion. In this case the argument from expert opinion is not an individual, but an entire institution Credit Suisse. Let’s look now how the argumentation for the main standpoint is built up. The recommendation is expressed by deontic- practical modal dovrebbe(should), which, in this case is indirect indicator that an argumentation based on practical reasoning is being put forth. How the practical reasoning can be represented here? In our case the goal of the investor is left implicit: The investors want to continue to profit and avoid losses. In view of this goal (which is necessary, but not sufficient to determine an action) together with a real circumstance that the start of a sideway phase is presumable lead to the recommendation expressed in the standpoint. Going further in the analysis the sub standpoint “it is presumable the start of a sideways phase is supported by two independent arguments. On the one hand we have the majority of the technical and fundamental analysts agree on that “ here the force

• f argument from expert opinion is enhanced by the consensus between two normally divergent

authorities (technical and fundamental analysis refer to two different and often polemically contrasted stock-picking methodologies used for researching and forecasting the future growth trends of stocks). On the other hand, we have the predictive statement “of the stop of the increasing Stock Exchange” the predictive statement is a consequent of the conditional which is typical for the predictions in economic financial news. This predictive statement is supported by two parallel lines

• f argumentation. On the one hand we have an argumentation advanced by the economist Buchalet

concerning the economic cycles (argument from historical precedent) which in its turn is supported by the argument “merger and acquisitions activities are sustaining the actual good lists performance” (which is by the way the same premise that was potentially usable by the virtual antagonist to support the doubt). Also here the credibility of the authority is enforced by reporting not only the name of the experts but also his entire line of reasoning. Other line of argumentation is the draining of the international liquidity (which is the minor premise) is represented in the text as an event just observed in the financial market. A clear indicator for this is the use of definite article. (il prosciugamento, the draining). The draining of the international liquidity is supported by the argument at the world level….. It is worth noticing here the complex evidential marker si vedono I primi segnali (one sees the first signals) which puts emphasis on the fact that the draining of the international liquidity is just observable in the market. As I have just mentioned previously, most of the economic forecasts are based on what the actors of the market call signals. In further research I intend to do a detailed semantic analysis of the word signal in order to understand its uses in

economic – financial news and more specifically its role as argumentative indicator. We have an argumentation supporting the implicit major premise that the draining of liquidity affects the growth of the economy. (two independent arguments one based on the less resources at low cost available for the financial investments and another one related to the family debts) In conclusion, the main standpoint advanced by the journalist is supported argumentatively by using argument from expert opinion, causal argument based on economic causality and argument from historical precedent. Causal argument is often considered more conclusive kind of support.