Article published in:
Interpersonal ArgumentationEdited by Harry Weger, Jr
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 4:1] 2015
► pp. 4–20
Adult as a source of expert opinion in child’s argumentation during family mealtime conversations
Antonio Bova | Università della Svizzera italiana (USI)
The present study addresses the issue of how the differences in age and roles with their parents can affect the children’s choice of the argumentative strategies they adopt in their discussions. The findings show that when children refer to a third person as a source of expert opinion, the expert always proves to be an adult, and not another child. Looking at this argumentative choice typically made by children, it is reasonable to assume that for them the reference to an opinion of an adult is a stronger argument than the reference to an opinion of another child. However, the actual effectiveness of the argument from adult-expert opinion depends on the extent to which the premises (endoxa) the argument is based on are shared by parents and children.
Keywords: argumentation, children, family, Argumentum Model of Topics, expert opinion, mealtime, model of a critical discussion
Published online: 08 June 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.4.1.01bov
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.4.1.01bov
References
Arcidiacono, Francesco, and Antonio Bova
2011a “Argumentative Strategies for Conflict Management and Resolution in Italian and Swiss Families.” Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 301: 1385–1389. 
2011b “ ‘I want to talk but it’s not possible!’ Dinnertime argumentation in Italian and Swiss families.” Journal of US-China Education Review A 31:355–368.
2013 “Argumentation among Family Members in Italy and Switzerland: A Cross-cultural Perspective.” In Steering the Cultural Dynamics, ed. by Yoshihisa Kashima, Emiko S. Kashima, and Ruth Beatson, 167–174. Melbourne: IACCP.
Arcidiacono, Francesco, Clotilde Pontecorvo, and Sara Greco Morasso
2009 “Family conversations: The relevance of context in evaluating argumentation.” Studies in Communication Sciences 9 (2): 79–92.
Bigi, Sarah
2012 “Contextual Constraints on Argumentation. The Case of the Medical Encounter”. In Exploring Argumentative Contexts, ed. by Frans H. van Eemeren, and Bart Garssen, 289–303. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana
1997 Dinner Talk: Cultural Patterns of Sociability and Socialization in Family Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bova, Antonio
2011a “Functions of Why-questions used by children in family conversations.” Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 301: 776–782.
2011b “Implicitness Functions in Family Argumentation.” In Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, ed. by Frans H. van Eemeren, Bart Garssen, David Godden, and Gordon Mitchell, 149–161. Amsterdam: Rozenberg/Sic Sat.
Bova, Antonio, and Francesco Arcidiacono
2013a.”Invoking the Authority of Feelings as a Strategic Maneuver in Family Mealtime Conversations.” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 23 (3): 206–224.
2013b “Investigating Children’s Why-questions. A Study Comparing Argumentative and Explanatory Function.” Discourse Studies 15 (6).
Brumark, Asa
2006 Regulatory Talk and Politeness at the Dinner Table. 16(2/3): 171–211.
2008 “ ‘Eat Your Hamburger!’ — ‘No, I don’t want to!’ Argumentation and Argumentative Development int he Context of Dinner Conversation in Twenty Swedish Families.” Argumenation 221: 251–271.
Dunn, Judy, and Penny Munn
1987 “Developmental of Justification in Disputes with Mother and Sibling.” Developmental Psychology 23 (6): 791–798.
van Eemeren, Frans H., and Rob Grootendorst
1992 Argumenation, Communication, and Fallacies: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
2004 A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
van Eemeren, Frans H., Rob Grootendorst, and A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
2002 Argumentation: Analysis, Evaluation, Presentation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Feteris, Eveline T
1999 Fundamentals of Legal Argumentation. A Survey of Theories on the Justification of Judicial Decisions. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Fiese, Barbara H., Kimberly P. Foley, and Mary Spagnola
2006 “Routine and Ritual Elements in Family Mealtimes: Contexts for Child Well-being and Family Identity.” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 1111: 67–89.
Greco Morasso, Sara
2011 Argumentation in Dispute Mediation: A Reasonable Way to Handle Conflict. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2012 “Contextual Frames and their Argumentative Implications: A Case-study in Media Argumentation.” Discourse Studies 14 (2): 197–216.
Hester, Stephen, and Sally Hester
2010 “Conversational Actions and Category Relations: An Analysis of a Children’s Argument.” Discourse Studies 12 (1): 33–48.
Laforest, Marty
2002 “Scenes of Family Life: Complaining in Everyday Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 34 (10-11): 1595–1620.
Palmieri, Rudi
2012 “The Diversifying of Contextual Constraints and Argumentative Strategies in Friendly and Hostile Takeover Bids.” In Exploring Argumentative Contexts, ed. by Frans H. van Eemeren and Bart Garssen, 343–375. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde
1993a “Social Interaction in the Acquisition of Knowledge.” Educational Psychology Review 5(3): 293–310.
1993b La condivisione della conoscenza. Florence: La Nuova Italia.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde, and Francesco Arcidiacono
2007 Famiglie all’italiana: parlare a tavola. Milan: Cortina.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde, and Alessandra Fasulo
1997 “Learning to Argue in Family Shared Discourse: The Reconstruction of Past Events.” In Discourse, Tools and Reasoning: Essays on Situated Cognition, ed. by Lauren B. Resnick, Roger Saljo, Clotilde Pontecorvo, and Barbara Burge, 406–442. New York, NY: Springer.
Pontecorvo, Clotilde, and Sabine Pirchio
2000 “A Developmental View on Children’s Arguing: The Need of the other.” Human Development 43 (6): 361–363.
Rigotti, Eddo
2009 “Whether and How Classical Topics can be Revived within Contemporary Argumentation Theory.” In Pondering on Problems of Argumentation, ed. by Frans H. van Eemeren and Bart Garssen, 157–178. Dordrecht: Springer.
Rigotti, Eddo, and Sara Greco Morasso
2010 “Comparing the Argumentum Model of Topics to other Contemporary Approaches to Argument Schemes: The Procedural and Material Components.” Argumentation 24 (4): 489–512.
Rigotti, Eddo, and Rudi Palmieri
2010 “Analyzing and Evaluating Complex Argumentation in an Economic-financial Context.” In Dialectics, Dialogue and Argumentation, ed. by Chris Reed and Christopher W. Tindale, 85–99. London: College Publications.
Slomkowski, Cheryl L., and Judy Dunn
1992 “Arguments and Relationships within the Family: Differences in Young Children’s Disputes with Mother and Sibling.” Developmental Psychology 28 (5): 919–924.
Walton, Douglas N
1997 Appeal to Expert Opinion. Arguments from Authority. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
2007 Media Argumentation: Dialectic, Persuasion and Rhetoric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Zarefsky, David
2009 “Strategic Maneuvering in Political Argumentation.” In Examining Argumentation in Context: Fifteen Studies on Strategic Maneuvering, ed. by Frans H. van Eemeren, 365–376. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Cited by
Cited by 14 other publications
No author info given
2021. .
In An Argumentative Analysis of the Emergence ofIssuesin Adult-Children Discussions [Argumentation in Context, 19],
Arcidiacono, Francesco & Antonio Bova
2015. Activity-bound and activity-unbound arguments in response to parental eat-directives at mealtimes: Differences and similarities in children of 3–5 and 6–9 years old.
Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 6 ► pp. 40 ff.
Bova, Antonio
2015. “This is the cheese bought by Grandpa”.
Journal of Argumentation in Context 4:2 ► pp. 133 ff.
Bova, Antonio
2019. A Qualitative Methodology for Studying Parent–Child Argumentation.
In The Functions of Parent-Child Argumentation,
► pp. 19 ff.
Bova, Antonio
2019. Parental strategies in argumentative dialogues with their children at mealtimes.
Language and Dialogue 9:3 ► pp. 379 ff.
Bova, Antonio
2020. Un estudio de los argumentos de autoridad utilizados por los padres con sus hijos durante las comidas.
Revista Iberoamericana de Argumentación :19 ► pp. 1 ff.
Bova, Antonio
2021. Co-construction of argumentative discussions between parents and children during mealtime conversations. A pragma-dialectical analysis.
Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 29 ► pp. 100519 ff.
Bova, Antonio
2021. Dialogical construction of parental feeding strategies during family mealtimes.
Journal of Health Psychology 26:10 ► pp. 1684 ff.
Bova, Antonio & Francesco Arcidiacono
2015. Beyond conflicts.
Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 3:2 ► pp. 263 ff.
Bova, Antonio & Francesco Arcidiacono
2016. The argument from expert opinion as other-oriented reference in disciplinary discussions.
Studies in Communication Sciences 16:2 ► pp. 114 ff.
Bova, Antonio & Francesco Arcidiacono
2018. The interplay between parental argumentative strategies, children's reactions and topics of disagreement during family conversations.
Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 19 ► pp. 124 ff.
Bova, Antonio & Francesco Arcidiacono
2020. Analyser les échanges discursifs entre parents et enfants par la reconstruction argumentative.
La revue internationale de l'éducation familiale n° 46:2 ► pp. 123 ff.
Bova, Antonio, Francesco Arcidiacono & Fabrice Clément
2017. Chapter 11. The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization.
In Argumentation across Communities of Practice [Argumentation in Context, 10],
► pp. 259 ff.
Convertini, Josephine
2021. Psychosocial Obstacles in Young Children Argumentative Interactions.
Education Sciences 11:5 ► pp. 224 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 january 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.