Program
Conference Program
Thursday 23rd September 2021
9:00 – 9:45 Registration
9:45 – 10:00 Conference opening
Session 1: Sars-Covid-19 and argumentation
10:00 – 10:30 Sarah Bigi, Giulia Grata & Paola Mosconi, Values as arguments in Italian public discourse about measures to contrast the Covid-19 pandemic
10:30 – 11:00 Salomi Boukala & Dimitris Serafis, Analyzing argumentative polylogues at the weakening of the COVID-19 pandemic: Political discourses from the European South
11:00 – 11:30 Jekaterina Nikitina, Our vaccine is unique and effective, or the persuasion in press releases of COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers
Plenary Session
11:30 – 12:30 Frans van Eemeren, A pragma-dialectical perspective on argumentative style
Lunch
Session 2: Argumentation across specialized domains
14:00 – 14:30 Giuliana Garzone, Dialogism in the service of rhetoric: discourse analytical perspectives
14:30 – 15:00 Paola Catenaccio, Legitimation in CSR reporting: the role of argumentation
15:00 – 15:30 Emanuele Brambilla, Argumentative style in international adoption dossiers
Break
Session 3: Argumentation and humanities
16:00 – 16:30 Mena Mitrano, Postcritique, method, persuasion
16:30 – 17:00 Aysel Ilqar Mammadbayli, The role of metaphoric mapping in the Rhetorical Structure Theory based on the analysis of English fictional texts
17:00 – 17:30 Paul Tucker, Argumentation and the "Interaction of Minds" in Text: the Case of Discourse on Art
19:30 Social Dinner
Friday 24th September 2021
Session 4: Argumentation and cognition
9:30 – 10:00 Edoardo Lombardi Vallauri, Implicit contents as deceiving arguments
10:00 – 10:30 Tiziana Roncoroni, Implicit and indirect persuasion in linguistic research articles
10:30 – 11:00 Azad Mammadov & Jamila Agamaliyeva, Pragmatic function of ellipsis in political interview: a corpus-assisted conversation analysis
11:00 – 11:30 Natalija Todorovic, Benedetto Lepori & Andrea Rocci, Words connecting scientific communities – The case of ‘argumentation’
Break
Plenary Session
12:00 – 13:00 Manfred Kienpointner, Early modern freedom discourse: Argumentative patterns in Arcangela Tarabotti's Tirannia paterna
Lunch
Session 5: Argumentation beyond reasonability
14:30 – 15:00 Ismael Arinas Pellón & Patrizia Anesa, Stories as emotional persuasion devices: A corpus-assisted study of advance-fee scams
15:00 – 15:30 Stéphane Rodrigues Dias, A case study on hate speech in the North and South:politicians as communicative agents
15:30 – 16:00 Thomas Werner, Talking across the (conspiratorial) divide
16:00 – 16:30 Ross Charnock, Bentham on rhetoric: the use and misuse of fallacies
16:30 – 17:00 Chiara Degano & Francesca Santulli, Argumentation and discourse: drawing the threads together
Keynote speakers
Frans van Eemeren
University of Amsterdam
A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective on Argumentative Style
In ‘A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective on Argumentative Style’ Frans van Eemeren explains that there is much more to argumentative style than just the well-known presentational (“linguistic”) dimension. Equally important dimensions of the argumentative styles utilized in resolving a difference of opinion are the topical dimension of the selection of the standpoints, starting points, arguments and concluding statements put forward in the discourse and the dimension of the adaptations to the presumed demand of the audience that is to be convinced. In argumentative discourse these three dimensions of argumentative style manifest themselves together in the argumentative moves that are made, the argumentative routes that are chosen and the strategic considerations that are brought to bear. It is explained that the pragma-dialectical theory provides the tools for identifying the argumentative style that is used. The expose is illustrated by discussing the distinctive properties of two general categories of argumentative styles: “detached” and “engaged” argumentative styles.
Manfred Kienpointner
University of Innsbruck
Early modern freedom discourse: Argumentative patterns in Arcangela Tarabotti's Tirannia paterna
Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-1652) is one of the most brilliant protagonists of protofeminist discourse in early modern Europe. Her treatise Tirannia paterna („Paternal Tyranny“; published posthumously in 1654 under the title La semplicità ingannata („Innocence Deceived“) provides a devastating criticism of the common practice of forcing young, „unmarriageable“ women to enter a convent. In my presentation, Tarabotti’s strategic maneuvering will be analysed in some detail, that is, her strategic choices concerning topical potential, audience demand and verbal presentation (cf. van Eemeren 2010: 93f.).
More specifically, I would like to analyse the argument schemes underlying Tarabotti’s criticism of forced monachization, such as Argument from Authority, Argument from Justice, Pragmatic Argument, Argument from Ends and Means etc. I will use Ancient and Modern Rhetoric and contemporary argumentation theory as the theoretical basis for this analysis (cf. Aristotle, Perelman-Olbrechts-Tyteca 1983, Kienpointner 1992, Walton et al. 2008).
Furthermore, I would like to reconstruct prototypical and stereotypical (that is, frequent) constellations of argument schemes in Tarabotti’s Tirannia paterna, which are called “Argumentative Patterns” by Frans van Eemeren in his recent work within the framework of Pragma-Dialectics. Argumentative patterns are “a particular constellation of argumentative moves in which, in dealing with a particular kind of difference of opinion, in defence of a particular type of standpoint, a particular argument scheme or combination of argument schemes is used in a particular kind of argumentative structure” (van Eemeren 2017: 6; van Eemeren 2018: 149ff.).
Finally, I would like to attempt a preliminary evaluation of Tarabotti’s argumentation. This evaluation will be sympathetic, but I will also point out some weak points of Tarabotti’s argumentative discourse.