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. 69–94

The significance of the adversative connectives aber, mais, ma (‘but’) as indicators in young children’s argumentation

| Università della Svizzera italiana
| Università della Svizzera italiana
| Università della Svizzera italiana
| Università della Svizzera italiana
| University of Neuchâtel
| University of Neuchâtel
Adversative connectives have been analyzed as articulating explicit and implicit facets of argumentative moves and have been thus recognized as potential argumentative indicators. Here we examine adversative connectives Ger. aber, Fr. mais, It. ma (‘but’) in young children’s speech in the context of the ArgImp project, a research endeavor seeking to understand in which situations children aged between two and six years engage in argumentation and how their contributions are structured. Two multilingual corpora have been collected for the project: (1) everyday family conversations, (2) semi-structured play activities and problem solving in a kindergarten setting. Through the detailed analysis of a small collection of examples, we consider the indicative potential of adversative connectives for identifying argumentative episodes in interactions involving young children and for the reconstruction of the inferential configurations of children’s contributions to these argumentative discussions. The results show that fully fledged argumentative interpretations of adversatives occur as a possibility in children’s speech, and that adversative connectives can be used profitably to identify less apparent argumentative confrontations and implicit standpoints in children’s speech.
Keywords: children’s argumentation, argumentative indicators, but , adversative connectives, argumentative semantics, counterargument, rebuttal, undercutter, implicit standpoints
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.An argumentative semantics for adversative connectives
    • 2.1 But and the typology of counterarguments
  • 3.Corpus data
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Banana
    • 4.2Day Care
    • 4.3I’m bored
    • 4.4Something important to do
    • 4.5T-shirt
    • 4.6Iron bridge
    • 4.7But, look!
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 04 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00008.roc
References
Akiguet, Sylvie and Annie Piolat
1996 “Insertion of Connectives by 9- to 11-Year-Old Children in an Argumentative Text”. Argumentation 10(2): 253–270. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Anscombre, Jean-Claude and Oswald Ducrot
1977 “Deux mais en français?”. Lingua 43(1): 23–40. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Asher, Nicholas and Alex Lascarides
2003 Logics of Conversation. Cambridge / New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Convertini, Joséphine
2019 Contributo allo studio dei tipi di argomento in situazioni di problem solving tecnico da parte di bambini in età prescolare. PhD dissertation. University of Neuchâtel.Google Scholar
Ducrot, Oswald, Sylvie Bruxelles, Eric Fouquier, Jean Gouazé, Géraldo dos Reis Nunez, and Anna Rémis
1980 “Mais occupe-toi d’Amélie”. In Les mots du discours, ed. by Oswald Ducrot et al., 93–130. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Freeman, James B.
1991 Dialectics and the macrostructure of arguments. A theory of argument structure. Berlin/New York: Foris. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2011 Argument Structure: Representation and Theory. Amsterdam: Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Greco Morasso, Sara
2013 “ Multivoiced decisions. A study of migrants’ inner dialogue and its connection to social argumentation”. Pragmatics and Cognition 21 (1): 55–80. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Greco, Sara
, Rebecca Schär, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont and Antonio Iannaccone (2017) Argumentation as a dialogic interaction in everyday talk: Adults and children playing by the rules in board game play. International Association for Dialogue Analysis (IADA) conference, Bologna, October 2017.Google Scholar
Greco Sara, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont, Antonio Iannaccone, Andrea Rocci, Joséphine Convertini and Rebecca Schär
2018 “The Analysis of Implicit Premises within Children’s Argumentative Inferences”. Informal Logic 38(4): 438–470. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Greco, Sara
2017 “Using Argumentative Tools to Understand Inner Dialogue”. Argumentation 31(2):331–358. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kehler, Andrew
2002 Coherence, reference, and the theory of grammar. Palo Alto, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Moeschler, Jacques
1989 Modélisation du dialogue: représentation de l’inférence argumentative. Paris: Hermès.Google Scholar
Mondada, Lorenza
2005 « L’analyse de corpus en linguistique interactionnelle: de l’étude de cas singuliers à l’étude de collections”. In Sémantique et corpus, ed. by Anne Condamines, 76–108. Paris: Hermès.Google Scholar
Nølke, Henning, Kjersti Fløttum and Coco Norén
2004 ScaPoLine. La théorie scandinave de la polyphonie linguistique. Paris: Kimé.Google Scholar
Peldszus, Andreas and Manfred Stede
2013 “From argument diagrams to argumentation mining in texts: A survey”. International Journal of Cognitive Informatics and Natural Intelligence (IJCINI) 7(1):1–31. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Carole
1986 “Semantic and Pragmatic Uses of ‘but’”. Journal of Child Language 13(3):583–590. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Piaget, Jean
1980 Les formes élémentaires de la dialectique. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Pollock, John L.
1987 “Defeasible Reasoning”. Cognitive Science 11(4):481–518. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rigotti, Eddo and Sara Greco
2019 Inference in Argumentation: A topics-based Approach to Argument Schemes. Cham: Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rocci, Andrea and Carlo Raimondo
2017 “Dialogical Argumentation in Financial Conference Calls: the Request of Confirmation of Inference (ROCOI)”. In Argumentation and Inference: Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Argumentation, Fribourg 2017 (Vol. II), ed. by Steve Oswald and Didier Maillat, 699–715. London: College Publications.Google Scholar
Rocci, Andrea
In press. The Language of Argumentation ed. by Ronny Boogaart, Henrike Jansen and Maarten van Leeuwen Springer
Schär, Rebbeca
2018 An argumentative analysis of the emergence of issues in adult-children discussions. PhD dissertation. Lugano: USI – Università della Svizzera italiana.Google Scholar
Schär, Rebecca and Sara Greco
2018 “The emergence of argumentative issues in everyday discussions between adults and children”. International Journal of Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric 2(1):29–43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Snoeck Henkemans, Francisca
1995 “ ‘But’as an indicator of counter-arguments and concessions”. Leuvense Bijdragen 841:1–14.Google Scholar
Spooren, Wilbert and Ted Sanders
2008 “The Acquisition Order of Coherence Relations: On Cognitive Complexity in Discourse”. Journal of Pragmatics 40(12):2003–2026. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Umbach, Carla
2005 “Contrast and Information Structure: A Focus-Based Analysis of but .” Linguistics 43(1):1–22. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H. and Rob Grootendorst
1992 Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies, A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H., Peter Houtlosser and Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
2007 Argumentative indicators in discourse: A pragma-dialectical study. New York: Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van Rees, Agnes
1992 The Use of Language in Conversation. Amsterdam: SicSat.Google Scholar
Winterstein, Grégoire
2012 “What but-sentences argue for: An argumentative analysis of but”. Lingua, 122(15): 1864–1885. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zeevat, Henk
2012 Objection marking and additivity. Lingua, 122(15):1886–1898. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

No author info given
2021.  In An Argumentative Analysis of the Emergence of Issues in Adult-Children Discussions [Argumentation in Context, 19], Crossref logo
Convertini, Josephine
2021. An Interdisciplinary Approach to Investigate Preschool children’s Implicit Inferential Reasoning in Scientific Activities. Research in Science Education 51:1 ► pp. 171 ff. Crossref logo
Convertini, Josephine & Francesco Arcidiacono
2021. Embodied Argumentation in Young Children in Kindergarten. Education Sciences 11:9 ► pp. 514 ff. Crossref logo
Rocci, Andrea
2021.  In The Language of Argumentation [Argumentation Library, 36], ► pp. 143 ff. Crossref 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. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 april 2022. 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.