Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 8:3 (2017) ► pp.323–354

Emotional positioning as a cognitive resource for arguing

Lessons from the study of Mexican students debating about drinking water management

| ICAR Laboratory, Université de Lyon
| ICAR Laboratory, Université de Lyon
| ICAR Laboratory, Université de Lyon
| ICAR Laboratory, Université de Lyon

This paper consists of a detailed analysis of how the participants in a debate build their emotional position during the interaction and how such a position is strongly related to the conclusion they defend. In this case study, teenage Mexican, students, arguing about access to drinking water, display extensive discursive work on the emotional tonality given to the issue. Plantin’s (2011) methodological tools are adopted to follow two alternative emotional framings produced by disagreeing students, starting from a common, highly negative, thymic tonality. Through the analysis of four parameters (distance to the problem; causality/agentivity; possibility of control and conformity to the norms) we describe how the emotional dimension of schematization (Grize 1997) is argumentatively relevant. In authentic discourse, it is impossible to separate emotion from reason. The conclusion section discusses the implications for the design of argumentation-based pedagogical activities.

Keywords: argumentation, schematization , norms, values, socio-scientific issues, emotional framing, group cognition
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Emotions in educational argumentation
    • 2.2The discursive construction of emotions as part of authentic argumentation practices
  • 3.Data and social context investigated
    • 3.1Pedagogical situation
    • 3.2Recording and treatment of the data
  • 4.Students’ strategic emotional positioning in argumentative discourse
    • 4.1Thymic characterization of the debate: “A matter of life or death”
      • 4.1.1Use of lexical markers
      • 4.1.2‘Necessity’: Death-orientated causal reasoning based on ‘upstream’ signals
    • 4.2Different emotional positions supporting competing argumentative claims
      • 4.2.1Emotional distance to the issue
      • 4.2.2Control, causality and agentivity as parameters framing emotional intensity
      • 4.2.3The use of principles to define appropriate, more or less pleasant, emotions
      • 4.2.4The ‘argument of sadness’: From normative to emotional conflict
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.8.3.01pol
References
Albe, Virginie
2006 “Procédés discursifs et rôles sociaux d’élèves en groupes de discussion sur une controverse socio-scientifique.” Revue française de pédagogie 1571: 103–118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Andriessen, Jerry, Mirjam Pardijs & Michael Baker
2013 “Getting on and Getting along.” In Affective Learning Together, ed. by Michael Baker, Sanna Järvelä & Jerry Andriessen, 205–229. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Anscombre, Jean-Claude & Oswald Ducrot
1997 [1981] L’argumentation dans la langue. Bruxelles: Mardaga.Google Scholar
Baker, Michael, Jerry Andriessen & Sanna Järvelä
2013 Affective Learning Together. Social and Emotional Dimensions of Collaborative Learning. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baker, Michael & Jerry Andriessen
2009 “Socio-Relational, Affective and Cognitive Dimensions of CSCL Interactions.” In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (2), ed. by Angelique Dimitracopoulou, Claire O’Malley, Daniel Suthers & Peter Reimann, 31–33. International Society of the Learning Sciences.Google Scholar
Baker, Michael, Matthieu Quignard, Kristine Lund & Marije van Amelsvoort
2002 “Designing a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Situation for Broadening and Deepening Understanding of the Space of Debate”. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, ed. by Frans H. van Eemeren, J. Anthony Blair, Charles A. Willard and A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans, 55–61.Google Scholar
Caffi, Claudia & Richard W. Janney
1994 “Toward a Pragmatics of Emotive Communication.” Journal of Pragmatics 22 (3–4): 325–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cahour, Béatrice
2013 “Emotions: Characteristics, Emergence and Circulation in Interactional Learning”. In Affective Learning Together, ed. by Michael Baker, Sanna Järvelä & Jerry Andriessen, 52–69. Basingstoke, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fowler, Samantha R., Dana L. Zeidler & Troy D. Sadler
2009 “Moral Sensitivity in the Context of Socioscientific Issues in High School Science Students.” International Journal of Science Education 31 (2): 279–296. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erwin
1967 Interaction Ritual: Esays in Face-to-face Behavior. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Grize, Jean-Blaise
1997 [1990] Logique et langage. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
Hamblin, Charles L.
1970 Fallacies. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Kacem, Saida & Laurence Simonneaux
2009 “The Teaching of Socioscientific Issues in Interdisciplinarity Biology-Philosophy, an Ethical Stake and Citizenship Issue.” US-China Education Review 6 (2): 44–47.Google Scholar
Järvenoja, Hanna & Sanna Järvelä
2013 “Regulating Emotions Together for Motivated Collaboration”. In Affective Learning Together, ed. by Michael Baker, Sanna Järvelä & Jerry Andriessen, 162–181. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Micheli, Raphaël
2013 “Esquisse d’une typologie des modes de sémiotisation verbale de l’émotion”. Semen 351: 17–40.Google Scholar
2010 L’émotion augmentée: l’abolition de la peine de mort dans le débat parlementaire français. Paris: Cerf.Google Scholar
Perelman, Chaïm & Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca
1958 Traité de l’argumentation: la nouvelle rhétorique. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Plantin, Christian
2011 Les bonnes raisons des émotions. Berne: Peter Lang. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plantin, Christian, Marianne Doury & Véronique Traverso
2000 Les émotions dans les interactions. Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon.Google Scholar
Polo, Claire
2014 L’eau à la bouche: ressources et travail argumentatifs des élèves lors de débats socio-scientifiques sur l’eau potable. PhD dissertation, Lyon 2 University.Google Scholar
Real Academia de la lengua Española
2001 “agotar”, Online Dictionary, 22th edition. [URL]. Accessed October 30th 2014.
Roschelle, Jeremy & Stéphanie D. Teasley
1995 “The Construction of Shared Knowledge in Collaborative Problem Solving.” In The First International Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning, ed. by Shelley V. Goldman, James G. Greeno, John L. Schnase & Edward L. Cunnius, 69–97. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simonneaux, Laurence & Jean Simonneaux
2009 “Students’ Socio-Scientific Reasoning on Controversies from the Viewpoint of Education for Sustainable Development.” Cultural Studies of Science Education 4 (3): 657–687. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sins, Patrick & Karl Karlgren
2013 “Identifying and Overcoming Tension in Interdisciplinary Teamwork in Professional Development.” In Affective Learning Together, ed. by Michael Baker, Sanna Järvelä & Jerry Andriessen, 185–203. Basingstoke, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Toulmin, Stephen E.
2003 [1958] The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ungerer, Friedrich
1997 “Emotions and Emotional Language in English and German News Stories.” In The Language of Emotions, ed. by Susanne Niemeier & René Dirven, 307–328. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Walton, Douglas
1992 The Place of Emotion in Argument. Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Zeidler, Danna L., Troy D. Sadler, Michael L. Simmons & Elaine V. Howes
2005 “Beyond STS: A Research-Based Framework for Socioscientific Issues Education.” Science Education 89 (3): 357–377. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Polo, Claire
2020. Références. In Le Débat fertile, ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo
Polo, Claire
2022. L’exploration de controverses comme argumentation socio-cognitivo-émotionelle : débattre de la gestion de l’eau potable de façon constructive. Questions vives recherches en éducation :N° 37 DOI logo
Valero Haro, Anahuac, Omid Noroozi, Harm Biemans & Martin Mulder
2022. Argumentation Competence: Students’ Argumentation Knowledge, Behavior and Attitude and their Relationships with Domain-Specific Knowledge Acquisition. Journal of Constructivist Psychology 35:1 ► pp. 123 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 april 2024. 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.