Article published In: Argumentation in European Politics
Edited by Corina Andone and Bart Garssen
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 11:1] 2022
► pp. 69–87
Arguing through quotations
The case of European Commission press releases
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Amsterdam.
Published online: 8 March 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.21023.and
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.21023.and
Abstract
This paper analyses and evaluates the use of arguments in which quotations are employed to convince the addressees of the acceptability of a proposed action. Based on the European Commission’s press releases, a communicative practice in which quotations are typically employed, the study demonstrates that quotations function as weak authority arguments that are not likely to be accepted by the addressees if they are not further supported by other argument types.
Keywords: press releases, quotations, authority arguments, European Commission
Article outline
- 1.Background, research question, goal
- 2.Approach
- 3.Press releases accompanying recommendations
- 3.1European Commission’s recommendations
- 3.2Argumentative pattern of press releases accompanying recommendations
- 4.Using quotations as authority arguments
- 4.1Strategies of quoting
- 4.2The quality of the quote
- 5.Conclusion
- Notes
References Case law/Legal Opinions EU official documents and reports Semi-structured interviews with European Commission officials
References (37)
Andone, Corina and Alfonso LomelíHernández, J. 2019. “Scientific arguments in policy-making.” Journal of Argumentation in Context 8 (2): 195–213.
Andone, Corina, and Sara Greco. 2018. “Evading the Burden of Proof in European Union Soft Law Instruments: the Case of Commission Recommendations.” International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 31 (1): 79–99.
Bublitz, Wolfram. 2015. “Introducing quoting as a ubiquitous meta-communicative act.” In The Pragmatics of Quoting Now and Then, ed. By Jenny Arendholz, Wolfram Bublitz, and Monika Kirner-Ludwig, 1–28. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Catenaccio, Paola. 2008. “Press releases as a hybrid genre: Addressing the informative/promotional conundrum.” Pragmatics 18 (1): 9–31.
Coman-Kund, Florin, and Corina Andone. 2019. “European Commission’s soft law instruments: In between legally binding and non-binding norms. In Lawmaking in Multi-level Settings, Patricia Popelier, Helen Xantaki, JoséTiago Silveira, Franz Ulhmann and William Robinson (eds.), 183–208. Oxford: Hart-Nomos Publishing.
Cummings, Louise. 2010. Rethinking the BSE Crisis. A Study of Scientific Reasoning under Uncertainty. Dordrecht: Springer.
. 2014. “The “trust” heuristic: Arguments from authority in public health.” Health Communication 29 (10): 1043–1056.
De Wilde, Pieter. 2019. “Media logic and grand theories of European integration.” Journal of European Public Policy 26 (8): 1193–1212.
. 2020b. “’And I quote’: Forms and functions of quotations in Prime Minister’s questions.” Journal of Pragmatics 1571: 89–100.
Gleissner, Martin, and Claes De Vreese. 2005. “News about the EU Constitution: Journalistic challenges and media portrayals of the European Union Constitution.” Journalism 6 (2): 221–242.
Grimmelikhuijsen, Stephan, Femke de Vries, and Wilte Zijlstra. 2018. “Breaking bad news without breaking trust: The effects of a press release and newspaper coverage on perceived trustworthiness.” Journal of Behavioral Public Administration 1 (1): 1–10.
Jacobs, Geert. 1999. Preformulating the News: An Analysis of the Meta-pragmatics of Press Releases. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Lindholm, Maria. 2008. “A community text pattern in the European Commission press release? A generic and genetic view.” Pragmatics 18 (1): 33–58.
Meyer, Christoph. 1999. “Political legitimacy and the indivisibility of politics: Exploring the European Union’s communication deficit.” Journal of Common Market Studies 37 (4): 617–639.
Pander Maat, Henk. 2008. “Editing and genre conflict: How newspaper journalists clarify and neutralize press release copy.” Pragmatics 18 (1): 87–115.
Sissons, Helen. 2012. “Journalism and public relations. A tale of two discourses.” Discourse and communication 6 (3): 271–294.
Sleurs, Kim, Geert Jacobs, and Luuk Van Waes. 2003. “Constructing press releases, constructing quotations: A case study.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 7 (2): 192–212.
Stefan, Oana. 2013. Soft Law in Court. Competition Law, State Aid and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Alphen aan de Rijn: Wolters Kluwer.
. 2020. “The Future of European Union Soft Law: A Research and Policy Agenda for the Aftermath of Covid-19.” Journal of International and Comparative Law 7 (2): 329–350.
Terpan, Fabien. 2015. “Soft Law in the European Union – the Changing Nature of EU Law.” European Law Journal 21 (1): 68–96.
van Eemeren, Frans H. 2016. “Identifying argumentative patterns: A vital step in the development of pragma-dialectics.” Argumentation 30 (1): 1–23.
(ed.). 2017. Prototypical Argumentative Patterns. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Case C-16/16P Belgium v Commission EU:C:2018:79.
European Commission. 2003. Style guide for press releases. Brussels: DG Press and Communication, European Commission.
Commission Recommendation 2011/711/EU of 27 October 2011 on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation, OJ L 283/39.
European Commission. 2020. Strategic Plan 2020–2024. DG Communication. Ref. Ares(2020)6501662-09/11/2020.
Press release ‘A Europe that protects: Commission reinforces EU response to illegal content online.’ IP/18/1169.
Commission Recommendation C(2019) 2335 final of 26 March 2019 on cybersecurity of 5G networks.
Commission Recommendation C(2019) 7131 final of 8 October 2019 establishing a common “Practical Handbook for Border Guards” to be used by Member States’ competent authorities when carrying out the border control of persons and replacing Commission Recommendation C(2006) 5186 of 6 November 2006.
Press release ‘Secure 5G networks: Commission endorses EU toolbox and sets out next steps.’ IP/20/123.
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Andone, Corina & Menno H. Reijven
Feldman, Ofer
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
