Computational Argumentation Synthesis as a Language Modeling Task

authored by

Roxanne El Baff, Henning Wachsmuth, Khalid Al-Khatib, Manfred Stede, Benno Stein

Abstract

Synthesis approaches in computational argumentation so far are restricted to generating claim-like argument units or short summaries of debates. Ultimately, however, we expect computers to generate whole new arguments for a given stance towards some topic, backing up claims following argumentative and rhetorical considerations. In this paper, we approach such an argumentation synthesis as a language modeling task. In our language model, argumentative discourse units are the “words”, and arguments represent the “sentences”. Given a pool of units for any unseen topic-stance pair, the model selects a set of unit types according to a basic rhetorical strategy (logos vs. pathos), arranges the structure of the types based on the units’ argumentative roles, and finally “phrases” an argument by instantiating the structure with semantically coherent units from the pool. Our evaluation suggests that the model can, to some extent, mimic the human synthesis of strategy-specific arguments.

External Organisation(s)

Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Paderborn University
University of Potsdam

Type

Conference contribution

Pages

54-64

No. of pages

11

Publication date

2019

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Software

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W19-8607 (Access: Open)