Voiced illustrations: The use of constructed voices in the study of argument

A defining characteristic of discourse studies as a field is its grounding in attested data and rejection of introspective data. Researcher intuition or speculation about what discourse is like does not constitute evidence. However, the use of invented examples is not uncommon in the study of argument, a phenomenon that has received little attention. Rather than dismiss them on epistemological grounds, this paper views invented examples as a feature of the written discourse of researchers and investigates the purpose they serve as ‘voiced illustrations’. Based on an analysis of 578 voiced illustrations in 26 published argumentation research articles, the study shows that constructed voices – fictional or hypothetical voices invented by a writer or speaker – are common and explains how they are used to illustrate abstractions. This use of constructed voices in research papers bears intertextual traces of the textbook genre, a form of generic intertextuality.