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Deconstructing arguments via digital mining of online comments

I highlight and illustrate a recent practical strategy for critical argument analysis that I have devised. I refer to it as ‘digital argument deconstruction’. This strategy helps to establish critical purchase on arguments intended for consumption in the public sphere, particularly when readers might not be so knowledgeable about the standpoint being criticized in the argument. Digital argument deconstruction utilizes a recent technological facility—the appending of discussion forums to online arguments, e.g. in online newspapers. This facility allows readers to post responses to an argument and to debate issues raised in it. Taken as a whole, the online comments in the discussion forums can be regarded as supplements to these arguments. I highlight the convenient utility value of this digital supplementation for critical reading of arguments. Integral to this approach to critical reading is corpus linguistic method—the software-based analysis of collections of electronic texts. I show how corpus linguistic analysis of a discussion forum appended to an argument can help illuminate whether or not the argument distorts the standpoint it criticizes. I also show how there can be a penalty for such distortion—the cohesive structure of the argument can be shown to be unstable. Because an argument’s credibility and capacity to persuade are, amongst a number of things, dependent on effective cohesion, showing where an argument’s cohesion falls apart or ‘deconstructs’ diminishes its credibility. A theoretical stimulus for this approach comes from the work of the philosopher, Jacques Derrida.