Cover not available
Article published In:
Argumentation and Meaning: Semantic and pragmatic reflexions
Edited by Steve Oswald, Sara Greco, Johanna Miecznikowski, Chiara Pollaroli and Andrea Rocci
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 9:1] 2020
► pp. 1–18

Argumentation and meaning

| University of Fribourg
| Università della Svizzera Italiana
| Università della Svizzera Italiana
| Università della Svizzera Italiana
| Università della Svizzera Italiana

This special issue aims to explore the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of meaning in terms of their significance and relevance in the study of argumentation. Accordingly, the contributors to the project, who have all presented their work during the 2nd Argumentation and Language conference, which took place in Lugano in February 2018, [1] 1 have been specifically instructed to produce papers which explicitly tackle the importance of the study of meaning for that of argumentative practices. All papers therefore cover at least one aspect of this complex relationship between argumentation and meaning, which contributes to delivering a state-of-the-art panorama on the issue. Drawing from computational linguistics, semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, the contributions to this special issue will illuminate how the study of meaning in its different forms may provide valuable insights for the study of people’s argumentative practices in different contexts, ranging from the political to the private sphere. This introductory discussion tackles specific aspects of the intricate relationship between pragmatic inference and argumentative inference – that is, between meaning and argumentation –, provides a brief survey of existing interfaces between the study of meaning and that of argumentation, and concludes with a presentation of the contributions to this special issue.

Keywords: argumentation, meaning, pragmatics, semantics, inference
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The relationship between pragmatic inference and argumentative inference
    • 2.1Pragmatic inference and argumentative inference
    • 2.2How pragmatic inference can impact argumentative inference
      • 2.2.1The interpretative dimension
      • 2.2.2The rhetorical dimension
  • 3.A (brief) survey of what the analysis of argumentation has gained from the study of meaning
    • 3.1Methodological advantages: Assisting in argumentative reconstructions
    • 3.2Theoretical advantages: Understanding argumentative practices more accurately
    • 3.3Normative advantages: Accounting for types of arguments and fallacies
  • 4.Presentation of the contributions to this special issue
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00005.osw
References
Anscombre, Jean-Claude, and Oswald Ducrot
1977 “Deux mais en français?”. Lingua 431: 23–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1983 L’argumentation dans la langue. Sprimont: Editions Mardaga.Google Scholar
Austin, John L.
1962 How to do things with words (Vol. 1955) London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, Jonathan
2014 Complete works of Aristotle, volume 1: The revised Oxford translation (Vol. 1921). Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bermejo Luque, L.
2011 Giving reasons: A linguistic-pragmatic approach to argumentation theory. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dascal, M.
2003 Interpretation and understanding. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Doury, Marianne
(ed) 2010 L’inscription langagière de l’argumentation. ( Special issue of Verbum 32(1)). Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy.Google Scholar
2016 Argumentation: analyser textes et discours. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Ducrot, Oswald, Danièle Bourcier, and Sylvie Bruxelles
1980 Les mots du discours. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
Govier, Trudy
2010 A practical study of argument. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.Google Scholar
Greco Morasso, Sara
2012 “Contextual frames and their argumentative implications: A case study in media argumentation”. Discourse Studies 14(2): 197–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, Paul
1975 “Logic and conversation”. In Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts (Vol. 3), ed. by Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
1989 Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hamblin, Charles
1970 Fallacies. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Hastings, A. C.
1963 A Reformulation of the Modes of Reasoning in Argumentation (PhD Thesis). Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Hinton, M.
2019 “Language and argument: A review of the field”. Research in Language 17(1): 93–103. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hosman, Lawrence A.
2002 Language and persuasion. In The persuasion handbook: Developments in theory and practice, ed. by James P. Dillard and Michael Pfau, 371–390. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George
2004 Don’t think of an elephant: Progressive values and the framing wars – A progressive guide to action. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.Google Scholar
Lambda-L Group
1975 “Car, parce que, puisque”. Revue Romane 10(2): 248–280.Google Scholar
Lewiński, Marcin, and Steve Oswald
2013 “When and how do we deal with straw men? A normative and cognitive pragmatic account”. Journal of Pragmatics, 59(B): 164–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber
2009 “Intuitive and reflective inferences”. In Two Minds: Dual Processes and Beyond, ed. by Jonathan Evans and Keith Frankish, 149–170. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34(2): 57–74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Micheli, Raphaël
2012 “Les visées de l’argumentation et leurs corrélats langagiers: une approche discursive”. Argumentation et analyse du discours 91. [URL]
Morency, Patrick, Steve Oswald, and Louis de Saussure
2008 “Explicitness, implicitness and commitment attribution: A cognitive pragmatic approach”. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 221: 197–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oswald, Steve
2016a “Commitment Attribution and the Reconstruction of Arguments”. In The Psychology of Argument. Cognitive Approaches to Argumentation and Persuasion, ed. by Fabio Paglieri, Laura Bonelli, and Silvia Felletti, 17–32. London: College Publications.Google Scholar
2016b “Rhetoric and cognition: Pragmatic constraints on argument processing”. In Relevance Theory : Recent developments, current challenges and future directions, ed. by Manuel Padilla Cruz, 261–285. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 “Pragmatic inference and argumentative inference”. In Argumentation and Inference: Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Argumentation, Fribourg 2017 (Vol. 21), ed. by Steve Oswald and Didier Maillat, 615–629. London: College Publications.Google Scholar
Oswald, Steve, Thierry Herman, and Jérôme Jacquin
(eds) 2018a Argumentation and Language. Linguistic, Cognitive and Discursive Explorations. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018b “Introduction”. In Argumentation and Language. Linguistic, Cognitive and Discursive Explorations, ed. by Steve Oswald, Thierry Herman, and Jérôme Jacquin, 1–21. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oswald, Steve and Marcin Lewiński
2014 “Pragmatics, cognitive heuristics and the straw man fallacy”. In Rhétorique et cognition: Perspectives théoriques et stratégies persuasives – Rhetoric and Cognition: Theoretical Perspectives and Persuasive strategies, ed. by Thierry Herman and Steve Oswald, 313–343. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Plantin, Christian
2016 Dictionnaire de l’argumentation. Lyon: ENS éditions.Google Scholar
Rigotti, Eddo, and Sara Greco
2019 Inference in Argumentation: A Topics-Based Approach to Argument Schemes. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rocci, A.
2006 “Pragmatic inference and argumentation in intercultural communication”. Intercultural Pragmatics, 3(4): 409–442. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 Modality in argumentation. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John R.
1969 Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson
1995 Relevance. Communication and cognition. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, Fabrice Clément, Christophe Heintz, Olivier Mascaro, Hugo Mercier, Gloria Origgi and Deirdre Wilson
2010 “Epistemic Vigilance”. Mind and Language 25(4): 359–393. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thibodeau, Paul H. and Lera Boroditsky
2011 “Metaphors We Think With : The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning”. PLOS ONE 6(2), e16782. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tindale, Christopher
1992 “Audiences, relevance, and cognitive environments”. Argumentation 6(2): 177–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H., and Rob Grootendorst
1984 Speech acts in argumentative discussions: A theoretical model for the analysis of discussions directed towards solving conflicts of opinion. Dordrecht: Foris publications. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H., & Grootendorst, Rob.
1992 Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies: A Pragma-dialectical Perspective. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H., and Rob Grootendorst
2004 A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H., Peter Houtlosser, and Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
2007 Argumentative Indicators in Discourse. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Walton, Douglas, and Erik Krabbe
1995 Commitment in dialogue: Basic concepts of interpersonal reasoning. Albany, NY: SUNY press.Google Scholar
Walton, Douglas, Chris Reed, and Fabrizio Macagno
2008 Argumentation Schemes. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yus, Francisco
1999 “Misunderstandings and explicit/implicit communication”. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 9(4): 487–517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Ervas, Francesca, Maria Grazia Rossi, Amitash Ojha & Bipin Indurkhya
2021. The Double Framing Effect of Emotive Metaphors in Argumentation. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Schumann, Jennifer, Sandrine Zufferey & Steve Oswald
2021. The Linguistic Formulation of Fallacies Matters: The Case of Causal Connectives. Argumentation 35:3 ► pp. 361 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 march 2023. 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.