What is it about?
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 (2011)’s methodological tools are adapted 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 the 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.
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Why is it important?
Our work shows why emotion is important in argumentation.
Perspectives
This article is one of many journal articles that Claire Polo is first author on and that capitalizes on her extraordinary PhD thesis work.
Dr. Kristine s. Lund
Ecole normale superieure de Lyon
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Emotional positioning as a cognitive resource for arguing, Pragmatics and Society, October 2017, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/ps.8.3.01pol.
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