Argumentative Strategies in the Polish Discourse on Attempts Memory Laws. The Parliamentary Debate on the 2018 Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance

Abstrakt

Drawing on the example of a Polish parliamentary debate on the penalization of “Volhynian lie”, the author examined argumentative strategies used by supporters and critics of memory laws. The study asked about the rationale presented by different political parties during the above-mentioned discussion. The presented research was inspired by the Discourse-Historical Approach in Critical Discourse Analysis. It revealed nearly 30 topoi used in the Polish debate on memory laws (e.g. the topos of threat, the topos of advantage, the topos of secondary victimisation, the topos of reciprocity, the topos of a surrogate theme). The study found that the supporters of the proposed regulations were appealing primarily to the moral sense and Christian values of the citizens. A substantial part of their arguments was based on the topoi of a healthy foundation, secondary victimisation, consistency and the topos of pro bono publico. The critics, in turn, adopted more pragmatic stance. Their statements were based predominantly on the topoi of feasibility, indispensability, quality, rationality and dialogue.