{"title":"At the juncture between evidentiality and argumentation","authors":"Johanna Miecznikowski","doi":"10.1075/jaic.00007.mie","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00007.mie","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The contribution discusses the theoretical problem of the relationship between evidentiality and argumentative justification. Within a framework that combines semantic and syntactic analysis with a topics-based approach to argument schemes, it is argued that the functional domains of information source and argumentation overlap in utterances in which the former is linguistically marked, rather than entailed or implicated: explicit linguistic evidential marking is a special case of argumentation. The connection between a proposition and its source gives rise to a class of arguments from a reliable procedure that are similar to arguments from authority. When the indicated source is an inferential procedure (rather than direct experience or hearsay), the evidential argument may be combined with additional arguments that lay out part of that procedure. The particular case of inferential sources is illustrated by means of an analysis of weakly grammaticalized constructions in Italian, based on verbs of thought, communication and perception that relate a propositional complement to a subject NP or to source / place complements of the verb. The analysis shows that such further complements can either refine the categorization of the inferential source signalled by the verb, thereby contributing to the main argument from a reliable procedure, or express a premise that allows the hearer to reconstruct the internal structure of the procedure.","PeriodicalId":41908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","volume":"9 1","pages":"42-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47519112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. Vallauri, Laura Baranzini, Doriana Cimmino, Federica Cominetti, Claudia Coppola, Giorgia Mannaioli
{"title":"Implicit argumentation and persuasion","authors":"E. Vallauri, Laura Baranzini, Doriana Cimmino, Federica Cominetti, Claudia Coppola, Giorgia Mannaioli","doi":"10.1075/jaic.00009.lom","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00009.lom","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper provides evidence that linguistic strategies based on the implicit encoding of information are effective means of deceptive argumentation and manipulation, as they can ease the acceptance of doubtful arguments by distracting addressees’ attention and by encouraging shallow processing of doubtful contents. The persuasive and manipulative functions of these rhetorical strategies are observed in commercial and political propaganda. Linguistic implicit strategies are divided into two main categories: the implicit encoding of content, mainly represented by implicatures and vague expressions, and the implicit encoding of responsibility, mainly represented by presuppositions and topics. The paper also suggests that the amount of persuasive implicitness contained in texts can be measured. For this purpose, a measuring model is proposed and applied to some Italian political speeches. The possible social usefulness of this approach is showed by sketching the operation of a website in which the measuring model is used to monitor contemporary political speeches.","PeriodicalId":41908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","volume":"9 1","pages":"95-123"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42890624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Oswald, S. Greco, Johanna Miecznikowski, Chiara Pollaroli, A. Rocci
{"title":"Argumentation and meaning","authors":"S. Oswald, S. Greco, Johanna Miecznikowski, Chiara Pollaroli, A. Rocci","doi":"10.1075/jaic.00005.osw","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00005.osw","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This 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 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.","PeriodicalId":41908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43553403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Argument and the Honey Pot","authors":"Didier Maillat","doi":"10.1075/jaic.00010.mai","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00010.mai","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper proposes to harness the linguistic theory that looks at the construction of meaning in context – i.e., pragmatics – to investigate the contextual effects bearing on the interpretation of arguments in manipulative seduction contexts. Adopting a cognitively grounded relevance-theoretic approach, I will show that deceptive seduction is used primarily to strengthen the hearer’s perception of the seducer, thereby strengthening the standpoints and arguments s/he puts forward. In that sense, it will be argued, seductive moves function like contextual constraints on the interpretative processes. Exploring further the cognitive grounding of human interpretative processes, I will claim that many seductive manipulations rely on the halo effect – the cognitive bias whereby a positive trait (e.g., attractiveness) tends to spill over other personality traits (e.g., competence) – to create a contextual environment that will boost argument evaluation.","PeriodicalId":41908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","volume":"9 1","pages":"124-147"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44233337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Automatic argumentation mining and the role of stance and sentiment","authors":"Manfred Stede","doi":"10.1075/jaic.00006.ste","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00006.ste","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Argumentation mining is a subfield of Computational Linguistics that aims (primarily) at automatically finding arguments and their structural components in natural language text. We provide a short introduction to this field, intended for an audience with a limited computational background. After explaining the subtasks involved in this problem of deriving the structure of arguments, we describe two other applications that are popular in computational linguistics: sentiment analysis and stance detection. From the linguistic viewpoint, they concern the semantics of evaluation in language. In the final part of the paper, we briefly examine the roles that these two tasks play in argumentation mining, both in current practice, and in possible future systems.","PeriodicalId":41908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","volume":"9 1","pages":"19-41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48652981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Non-propositional meanings and commitment attribution","authors":"Misha-Laura Müller","doi":"10.1075/jaic.00011.mul","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00011.mul","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, I elaborate on the cognitive pragmatic approaches of commitment attribution. I argue that non-propositional meanings (Sperber and Wilson 2015) play a role in the reconstruction of arguments (see Oswald 2016) and I underline that this constitutes a further argument in favor of a cognitive approach to the study of commitment attribution. I focus on an authentic example of a straw man fallacy consisting in (a) an implicit misattribution of commitments to the speaker with the form “Excuse me for having done p” and (b) a refutation of the attributed position by means of non-propositional effects (in this case, the refutation is implicitly conveyed through an ironical utterance). I conclude that non-propositional effects can serve as a criterion to distinguish a mere false attribution of commitments from a full-fledged straw man fallacy.","PeriodicalId":41908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","volume":"9 1","pages":"148-166"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49441733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Rocci, S. Greco, Rebecca G. Schär, Josephine Convertini, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont, Antonio Iannaccone
{"title":"The significance of the adversative connectives aber, mais, ma (‘but’) as indicators in young\u0000 children’s argumentation","authors":"A. Rocci, S. Greco, Rebecca G. Schär, Josephine Convertini, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont, Antonio Iannaccone","doi":"10.1075/jaic.00008.roc","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00008.roc","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Adversative connectives have been analyzed as articulating explicit and implicit facets of argumentative moves and\u0000 have been thus recognized as potential argumentative indicators. Here we examine adversative connectives Ger.\u0000 aber, Fr. mais, It. ma (‘but’) in young children’s speech in the context of\u0000 the ArgImp project, a research endeavor seeking to understand in which situations children aged between two and six years engage\u0000 in argumentation and how their contributions are structured. Two multilingual corpora have been collected for the project: (1)\u0000 everyday family conversations, (2) semi-structured play activities and problem solving in a kindergarten setting. Through the\u0000 detailed analysis of a small collection of examples, we consider the indicative potential of adversative connectives for\u0000 identifying argumentative episodes in interactions involving young children and for the reconstruction of the inferential\u0000 configurations of children’s contributions to these argumentative discussions. The results show that fully fledged argumentative\u0000 interpretations of adversatives occur as a possibility in children’s speech, and that adversative connectives can be used\u0000 profitably to identify less apparent argumentative confrontations and implicit standpoints in children’s speech.","PeriodicalId":41908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Argumentation in Context","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47784253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}