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Article published In:
Argumentation in Journalism: Professional practices and the public sphere
Edited by Corina Andone and Andrea Rocci
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 5:1] 2016
► pp. 9–28

Arguing with oneself

The writing process as an argumentative soliloquy

| Zurich University of Applied Sciences
Argumentation is generally conceived of as a dialogic activity between two or more participants. Nonetheless, it operates also at an intrapersonal level (Rocci 2005), in a soliloquy where protagonist and antagonist of the critical discussion are embodied in the same person. We argue this case by analyzing journalists’ argumentation about linguistic choices in newswriting processes. Empirically, we draw on data generated with progression analysis (Perrin 2003), in particular with cue-based retrospective verbal protocols. The data was produced by the journalists under investigation when they, while watching video recordings of their text production processes, reconstructed and verbalized their decisions (Perrin 2011: 60). In the detail analysis, we focus on one editorial by an experienced journalist of Corriere del Ticino, the main Italian-language newspaper in Switzerland.
Keywords: progression analysis, argumentum model of topics, argumentative soliloquy, newsmaking
Published online: 24 March 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.5.1.01zam
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[no author supplied]
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