Argumentation最新文献

{"title":"Metaphors and Linguistic Intimacy in Ad Populum Arguments","authors":"Francesca Ervas,&nbsp;Giulia Zucca,&nbsp;Oriana Mosca","doi":"10.1007/s10503-026-09690-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-026-09690-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Metaphor is a pragmatic device that might influence how arguments are evaluated. Beyond its cognitive and aesthetic value, metaphor also fosters linguistic intimacy, i.e., the feeling of belonging to an intimate community. The paper hypothesizes that linguistic intimacy might be particularly relevant in <i>ad populum</i> arguments, where a sense of belonging to the community endorsing the argument might influence the acceptance of the conclusion. In <i>ad populum</i> arguments, indeed, metaphors might act as a “concealed invitation” to accept and share a conclusion, encouraging effortful interpretation that results in a feeling of shared community. However, not all <i>ad populum</i> arguments are fallacious: they may reflect reasonable consensus, with the agreement with their conclusion depending on how they are framed. The article presents an empirical study investigating whether conventional and novel emotive metaphors vs. their literal counterparts within <i>ad populum</i> premises increase participants’ acceptance of the argument conclusion. The results showed that especially novel and negative metaphors in the premises make people less prone to evaluate the conclusion of <i>ad populum</i> arguments as logically acceptable, while conventional and positive metaphors in the premises makes them feel intimacy with the group of people supporting the conclusion, more easily leading to agreement with their conclusion.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"40 :","pages":"11 - 35"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10503-026-09690-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147560545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Approaching the Study of Argumentation from an Experimental Perspective","authors":"Jennifer Schumann,&nbsp;Steve Oswald","doi":"10.1007/s10503-026-09695-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-026-09695-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"40 :","pages":"1 - 9"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147560578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Experimental Insights into the Influence of Logic and Pragmatics on Conditional Argument Evaluation","authors":"Ermioni Seremeta,&nbsp;Monique Flecken,&nbsp;Menno Reijven,&nbsp;Jean Wagemans","doi":"10.1007/s10503-026-09691-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-026-09691-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Research on conditional reasoning has long debated whether human rationality is best captured by logicist accounts or by pragmatically oriented approaches such as Relevance Theory, which highlight contextual and communicative factors. While the former predict reliable adherence to logical schemata (e.g., <i>Modus Ponens</i> and <i>Modus Tollens</i>), experimental evidence consistently reveals systematic deviations, such as endorsement of invalid inferences. The latter view attributes such patterns not to irrationality, but to pragmatic expectations that guide interpretation. This study contributes to this debate by examining how logical validity and pragmatic congruency jointly shape the evaluation of conditional arguments. We report two experiments employing a 2 × 2 factorial design. In Experiment 1, participants evaluated conditional syllogisms framed in the standard 'if/then' format. Results showed that pragmatic violations slowed responses and, crucially, facilitated detection of logical invalidity, without hindering performance on valid arguments. Experiment 2 reformulated the same arguments using the Periodic Table of Arguments to replace 'if/then' conditionals with lever-based structures. Here, participants exhibited a generalized tendency to resist conditional inference, resulting in improved rejection of invalid arguments but reduced recognition of valid ones. Across both studies, pragmatic congruency alone did not predict accuracy, but interactions between pragmatic expectations and logical form systematically influenced evaluations. Taken together, the findings suggest that pragmatics does not override logic but modulates its accessibility: violations of pragmatic expectations invite deliberation. At the same time, semantic scaffolding, such as explicit 'if/then' cues, supports deductive reasoning. We propose that natural argumentation depends on this interplay, highlighting the need for situated accounts of logos.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"40 :","pages":"95 - 118"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10503-026-09691-6.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147559491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"(Mis)representing the Opposition and Rhetorical Success: Experimental Evidence on Faithful and Inaccurate Reformulations","authors":"Ramy Younis","doi":"10.1007/s10503-026-09692-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-026-09692-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Previous research in argumentation has closely examined distortions of the opposition—particularly the straw man—and has recently provided some experimental evidence on their effects on persuasive outcomes. However, comparatively little empirical attention has been given to the inverse practice of faithfully reformulating an opponent’s contribution. The effects of accurate and inaccurate representations on speaker <i>ethos</i> and perceived reasonableness also remain underexplored. This paper addresses these gaps through three pre-registered experimental studies comparing <i>accurate reformulation</i>, <i>misrepresentation</i>, and <i>no reformulation</i> of the opposition. Experiment 1 assesses the impact of these practices on perceived trustworthiness using a six-item, 7-point semantic differential scale. Experiment 2 examines judgments of reasonableness using a scale repeatedly employed in pragma-dialectical effectiveness research. Experiment 3 measures persuasiveness at both the attitudinal and behavioral intention levels. Participants read a series of pre-tested argumentative exchanges between two speakers in a charitable-giving context. Results show that, in the cases examined, misrepresenting the opposition negatively impacted both trustworthiness and reasonableness judgments, addressing concerns that adhering to dialectical standards may diminish rhetorical success.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"40 :","pages":"119 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147561794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is a Contradiction Between Arguments Less Likely to be Noticed When They are Implicit? An Experimental Case Study","authors":"Edoardo Lombardi Vallauri","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09686-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09686-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The paper investigates whether contradictory arguments are less likely to be noticed when they are expressed implicitly rather than explicitly. It builds on the fact that—in natural language productions—contradictions are often not logical but rather—<i>lato sensu</i>—pragmatic in nature. The study presents an experiment using ecological and slightly modified material. In a Facebook post, Italian journalist Selvaggia Lucarelli conveyed two contradictory arguments through implicatures, presuppositions and vague expressions. This text was presented to experimental subjects: half read the original version, while the other half read a version in which the implicit content had been made explicit. Their responses to specific questions indicate that the contradiction is more easily noticed when it occurs between explicit assertions rather than between arguments that must be at least partially inferred. A strong effect is observed in relation to age and education differences among the groups. These results may provide experimental insight into the conditions under which argumentation flawed by contradictions may still achieve its intended effect, as if the contradiction were not present.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"40 :","pages":"73 - 93"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10503-025-09686-9.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147559461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Are Insinuated Ad Hominem Arguments Rhetorically Effective? Yes, but Conditions Apply","authors":"Daniel de Oliveira Fernandes,&nbsp;Steve Oswald","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09681-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09681-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Personal attacks, which might convey damaging accusations, can take either an explicit or an implicit form. When they are communicated implicitly, they are referred to as <i>insinuations</i>. Their implicit nature is said to allow speakers to evade responsibility, preserve their public image, or even conceal argumentative weaknesses. In previous studies, we found that insinuated <i>ad hominem</i> arguments supporting disagreement made speakers appear more persuasive and trustworthy than explicit ones. However, further exploratory analyses of our data revealed that the advantage of insinuated over explicit <i>ad hominem</i> arguments was either only present or more pronounced when the personal attack was fallacious. This distinction between <i>explicitness</i> and <i>fallaciousness</i>—and their possible interaction—had not been accounted for in earlier work. To investigate this interaction more systematically, we conducted four preregistered experiments examining the combined effects of explicitness and fallaciousness in <i>ad hominem</i> arguments. Results indicate that there is no significant interaction between fallaciousness and implicitness, regardless of whether the personal attack targets the proponent’s expertise or character. While the often-assumed persuasive benefits of insinuation do not consistently emerge—and may even undermine argumentative support in the context of disagreemen—insinuation confers social advantages, as the speaker is perceived as more trustworthy overall. Moreover, valid arguments are consistently preferred over fallacious ones—not only when it comes to supporting disagreement, but also in shaping how the speaker is perceived. This suggests that while pragmatic subtleties, such as insinuation, can enhance perceived trustworthiness, argumentative soundness remains a central criterion in both rhetorical and interpersonal judgments.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"40 :","pages":"37 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10503-025-09681-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147558796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Selective Dispute Avoidance, Deep Disagreements, and Pragmatic Meta-Arguments for Engagement","authors":"Scott Aikin","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09672-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09672-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The phenomenon of selective dispute avoidance is that there are issues we debate and issues we recoil from debating, despite the fact that they are very similar in values at stake. What accounts for this variance? That some disagreements are deep and engagements on some deep issues yields meta-argumentatively bad results is a plausible explanation. However, practical second-order rebutting reasons to these considerations are proposed, essentially that not engaging has foreseeably worse consequences than engaging. What favors engagement, then, is that only when engaged can one address the negative second-order reasons one yields on either approach. What follows is a pragmatic meta-argument for engagement, even in cases of deep disagreement.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 4","pages":"533 - 544"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10503-025-09672-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145449751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Blake D. Scott: The Rhetoricity of Philosophy: Audience in Perelman and Ricoeur After the Badiou-Cassin Debate: London/New York, Routledge 2025, 326 p., 6 b/w Illus","authors":"Edward Schiappa","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09677-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09677-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 4","pages":"635 - 641"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145449456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Questions as Elements of Argumentation in Political Debates","authors":"Daniel Ziembicki","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09674-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09674-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The role of interrogative sentences in political argumentation remains largely unexplored. This study addresses this gap by introducing a new Polish-language dataset featuring diverse examples of interrogative sentences in political discourse (election debates). The dataset serves as a unique resource for theoretical research in Argumentation Mining and Natural Language Inference through the annotation of ⟨IS, C⟩ and ⟨IS, P⟩ pairs, where IS denotes an interrogative sentence, C represents its corresponding conclusion, and P indicates a premise. The annotations primarily capture implicitly expressed argumentative structures and can serve as a benchmark for large language models (LLMs), particularly those trained on Polish-language data. Furthermore, this is the first study in Argumentation Mining where annotators independently verbalize the content of conclusions and premises conveyed through speech acts constructed with interrogative sentences. Our findings reveal that interrogative sentences in political debates most frequently function as implicature (approx. 45%), normative propositions (approx. 31%), statements expressing epistemic states (approx. 20%), and presuppositions (approx. 4%). Semantic similarity analysis confirms that annotators achieve a high level of consistency in identifying and verbalizing the content implied by interrogative sentences. The dataset provides a robust foundation for developing advanced language models and for further research into the role of interrogative sentences in political discourse.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 4","pages":"601 - 634"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10503-025-09674-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145449719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cross-Cultural Comparison of Argument Structures Among English Learners: Argument Proficiency, Patterns, and Communication Styles","authors":"Mei-Hua Chen,&nbsp;Wei-Fan Chen,&nbsp;Garima Mudgal,&nbsp;Henning Wachsmuth","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09670-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09670-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This interdisciplinary study analyzes 6,085 learner argumentative essays across 16 language backgrounds using argument mining. Automated scoring of organization and argument strength is used to assess learners’ argument proficiency. The extraction of Argumentative Discourse Units (ADUs) (such as claims and premises) enables a comprehensive examination of argument structures at the sentence (ADUs), paragraph (ADU flows), and full-text (argumentative communication style) levels. Cross-cultural comparisons, based on language family and cultural context, reveal three major findings: (1) Learners often exhibit appropriate argument structure despite cultural differences, but reasoning is insufficient frequently. (2) High- and low-context cultures share the same top-3 ADU flows. While premises appear more frequently than claims in both groups, more notably in low-context cultures, high-context essays contain more non-argumentative units. (3) Over 87.2% of the essays reflect a direct argumentative style by placing claims at the beginning of the texts, especially in low-context cultures. Yet, only about 40% of the essays offer adequate supporting premises, with high-context cultures more often providing well-supported claims. In short, computational argumentation (argument mining along with organization and argument strength scoring) enhances language education by reducing manual annotation and enabling large-scale analysis of argumentative texts, providing insights into how culturally-diverse learners construct arguments.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 4","pages":"571 - 599"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145449754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}