Reasons for trust. The (counter-) argumentative dynamics of image-repair strategies

Abstract

The paper develops an argumentative perspective to trust-repair discourse by reinterpreting Benoit’s image repair strategies with conceptual and analytic instruments from Argumentation Theory. From such perspective, (1) a trustor’s attack is understood as an argument for a standpoint that denies one of the components of trustworthiness (ability, integrity, benevolence); (2) the trustee’s response consists in a counterargument that refutes and defeats the original attack, thus restoring a positive standpoint of trustworthiness. By combining the diagramming method for counterargumentation (macro-level analysis) with the AMT’s inferential configuration (micro-level analysis), the paper shows the different refutational dynamics activated by each trust-repair strategy in Benoit’s taxonomy. While some strategies (e.g., denials) are underminers, others are undercutters which point either to the insufficiency or irrelevance of the trustor’s argument. The proposed approach enables to uncover more nuanced strategies and to develop a more accurate critical evaluation of trust-repair communication. It also reveals some flaws in existing taxonomies of image-repair strategies. Overall, the results of this article build a case for an argumentative approach to trust-oriented communication and have significant implications for the design of both discourse-analytic and experiment-based studies on trust-repair strategies.