The purpose of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand, our goal is theoretical, as we aim at providing an instrument for detecting, analyzing, and solving ambiguities based on the reasoning mechanism underlying interpretation. To this purpose, combining the insights from pragmatics and argumentation theory, we represent the background assumptions driving an interpretation as presumptions. Presumptions are then investigated as the backbone of the argumentative reasoning that is used to assess and solve ambiguities and drive (theoretically) interpretive mechanisms. On (...) the other hand, our goal is practical. By analyzing ambiguities as stemming from different presumptions concerning language or, more importantly, expected communicative roles and goals, we can use communicative misunderstandings as the signal of deeper disagreements concerning mutual expectations or cultural differences. This argumentation-based interpretive mechanism will be applied to the analysis of medical interviews in the area of diabetes care, and will be used to bring to light the sources of misunderstanding and the different presumptions that define distinct cultures. We will consequently illustrate the analytical tools by identifying and distinguishing the various types of ambiguity underlying misunderstandings, and we will address them by describing the communicative intentions ascribed to the ambiguous utterances. (shrink)

This paper uses argument diagrams, argumentation schemes, and some tools from formal argumentation systems developed in artificial intelligence to build a graph-theoretic model of relevance shown to be applicable as a practical method for helping a third party judge issues of relevance or irrelevance of an argument in real examples. Examples used to illustrate how the method works are drawn from disputes about relevance in natural language discourse, including a criminal trial and a parliamentary debate.

Douglas Walton, perhaps the most prolific author in Argumentation theory, has been of a great influence in the fields of Informal logic, Artificial intelligence, and Law. His contributions in the field of educational research, in particular in the field of argumentation and education, are less known. This review paper aims at shedding light on those aspects of Walton’s theory that have received educational researchers’ attention thus far, as well identifying existing lacks of consideration and open paths for future research.

In the domain of medical science, factual evidence is usually considered as the criterion on which to base decisions and construct hypotheses. Evidence-based medicine is the translation of this approach into the field of patient care, and it means providing only the type of care that is based on evidence that proves its effectiveness and appropriateness. However, while the literature has focused on the types and force of evidence used to establish the recommendation and treatment guidelines, the problem of how (...) evidence is used in doctor–patient interactions to motivate, or refuse, treatment or habit change has been almost completely neglected. In this specific context, characterized by the epistemic unbalance between the interlocutors and a specific conversational goal, the scientific categories of evidence are often irrelevant. The goal of this paper is to address this challenge by analyzing the role evidence plays in doctor–patient interactions in diabetes care. After introducing an analytical distinction between the epistemic and the pragmatic aspect of evidence, we will propose a classification of the types and functions of evidence in chronic care communication, and illustrate its possible uses through its application to our corpus of diabetes-care consultations. From our qualitative analyses, it is possible to observe how in this communicative context a crucial role is played by the conflicts of evidence, in which providers correct patients’ uses of evidence leading them to using less defeasible levels of evidence. (shrink)

Questions, and more specifically authentic questions, are at the core of dialogue-based learning and teaching. However, what is a question, and how can it be authentic? This paper addresses this problem by analyzing the distinct dimensions of questions, showing how their pragmatic nature is interwoven with the syntactic and semantic one, and how it can be grasped only by considering their dialogical functions. Questions are maintained to be proposals of different dialogue games (or types), pursuing specific interactional purposes, and potentially (...) contributing to learning processes in different ways. By understanding how questions shape different dialogues it is possible to ask more suitable questions to the questioner’s goals. In this framework, the dichotomy between authentic and inauthentic questions becomes a strategic choice between different types of dialogical possibilities. (shrink)

The fields of linguistic pragmatics and legal interpretation are deeply interrelated. The purpose of this paper is to show how pragmatics and the developments in argumentation theory can contribute to the debate on legal interpretation. The relation between the pragmatic maxims and the presumptions underlying the legal canons are brought to light, unveiling the principles that underlie the types of argument usually used to justify a construction. The Gricean maxims and the arguments of legal interpretation are regarded as presumptions subject (...) to default used to justify an interpretation. This approach can allow one to trace the different legal interpretive arguments back to their basic underlying presumptions, so that they can be compared, ordered, and assessed according to their defeasibility conditions. This approach allows one to understand the difference between various types of interpretive canons, and their strength in justifying an interpretation. (shrink)

The detection and analysis of misunderstandings are crucial aspects of discourse analysis, and presuppose a twofold investigation of their structure. First, misunderstandings need to be identified and, more importantly, justified. For this reason, a classification of the types and force of evidence of a misunderstanding is needed. Second, misunderstandings reveal differences in the interlocutors’ interpretations of an utterance, which can be examined by considering the presumptions that they use in their interpretation. This paper proposes a functional approach to misunderstandings grounded (...) on presumptive reasoning and types of presumptions, in which incompatible interpretations or interpretative failures are examined as defaults of the underlying interpretative reasoning, caused by overlooked evidence or conflicting presumptions. Moreover, it advances a classification of the types and the probative weights of the evidence that can be used to detect misunderstandings. The proposed methodology and its implications are illustrated through the analysis of doctor–patient communication in diabetes care. (shrink)

Pragmatic presupposition is analyzed in this paper as grounded on an implicit reasoning process based on a set of presumptions, which can define cultural differences. The basic condition for making a presupposition can be represented as a reasoning criterion, namely reasonableness. Presuppositions, on this view, need to be reasonable, namely as the conclusion of an underlying presumptive reasoning that does not or may not contain contradictions with other presumptions, including the ordering of the hierarchy of presumptions. Presumptions are in turn (...) analyzed considering their nature and their hierarchy, namely their object and their possible contextual backing, which eliminates some of their possible defaults. This analysis of presupposition brings to light the relationship between communicative infelicities or misunderstandings deriving from presuppositional failures and the underlying system of presumptions and presumptive reasoning. This approach can be applied to the investigation of communicative problems within the medical context, and more precisely the communication in diabetes cases. (shrink)

Cancellability is an essential feature of implicatures. However, its reliability has been challenged by several cases and examples in which conversational implicatures seem to be hard or even impossible to cancel. Should it then be concluded that not all implicatures are cancellable, and therefore Grice's cancellability test should be weakened or abandoned? The present paper addresses this problem by drawing a distinction between theoretical and practical cancellability, where the latter concept captures the (un)reasonableness of explicit or contextual cancellation. By analyzing (...) three legal cases of misleading advertising, I show how the indefensibility of an interpretation can account for the practical uncancellability of an implicature. To explain and account for the reasonableness of an interpretation, the presumptive inferences involved must be reconstructed and evaluated considering different dimensions, such as the conversational context and the associated presumptions. (shrink)

Studies of adolescents and young-adults suggest that deliberative dialogue, a form of consensus-seeking argumentation, leads to stronger learning outcomes than persuasive dialogue. However, this research has not been informed by an analysis of dialogue among more experienced arguers. In the present study, we compare the deliberative and persuasive dialogues of novice and experienced arguers to better understand the difference between these two forms of discourse at differing levels of argumentative expertise. Our results confirm theoretical distinctions between deliberation and persuasion. Results (...) also suggest that greater experience in argumentation is associated with a richer array of argumentative purposes, producing more cohesive, intersubjective and dialectically relevant dialogue. The implications of these findings for learning are discussed. (shrink)

The detection of hate speech and fake news in political discourse is at the same time a crucial necessity for democratic societies and a challenge for several areas of study. However, most of the studies have focused on what is explicitly stated: false article information, language that expresses hatred, derogatory expressions. This paper argues that the explicit dimension of manipulation is only one – and the least problematic – of the risks of political discourse. The language of the unsaid is (...) much more dangerous and incomparably more difficult to detect, hidden in different types of fallacies and inappropriate uses of emotive language. Through a threefold coding scheme based on the instruments of argumentation theory and pragmatics, a corpus of argumentative tweets published by 4 politicians (Matteo Salvini, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Joseph Biden) within 6 months from their taking office (corresponding to the official end of their election campaign) is analyzed, detecting the types of argument, the fallacies, and the uses and misuses of “emotive words.” This coding results in the argumentation profiles of the speakers, which are compared statistically to show their different implicit strategies and deceptive tactics. (shrink)

Twitter is an instrument used not only for sharing public or personal information, but also for persuading the audience. While specific platforms and software have been developed for analyzing macro-analytical data, and specific studies have focused on the linguistic dimension of the tweets, the argumentative dimension of the latter is unexplored to this date. This paper intends to propose a method grounded on the tools advanced in argumentation theory for capturing, coding, and assessing the different argumentative dimensions of the messages (...) posted on Twitter, focusing on the types of argument communicated, the quality of their premises, and the fallacies committed – including the use of unshared presuppositions and emotive words. This method is applied to a corpus of 843 tweets published by the Italian Minister of the Interior, Mr. Matteo Salvini, from the date of his appointment to the beginning of his campaign for the European elections. The quantitative data provide general indications for detecting the strategies that characterize the argumentative profile of Salvini, which are then analyzed qualitatively. (shrink)

Metaphors are considered as instruments crucial for persuasion. However, while their emotive, communicative and persuasive effects are the focus of different studies and discussions, the core of their persuasive function, namely their argumentative dimension, is almost neglected. This paper addresses the problem of explaining how metaphors can communicate arguments, and how it is possible to reconstruct and justify them. To this purpose, a distinction is drawn between the arguments that are communicated metaphorically and reconstructed “top down,” namely based on relevance (...) considerations, and the ones that are triggered implicitly by the use of a metaphorical expression. In both cases, metaphorical arguments are reconstructed through different patterns of argument, called argumentation schemes (Walton, Reed & Macagno 2008). However, while the purpose of a metaphorical sequence of discourse (called metaphorical move) can guide and justify the reconstruction of the argument that can sufficiently support the intended conclusion in a persuasive move, a more complex analysis is needed for analyzing the inferences that a metaphorical move can trigger. These inferences are claimed to represent part of the connotation of the metaphorical expression and can be captured through its most frequent collocations, determinable using some tools of the corpus linguistics. (shrink)

This paper advances an approach to relevance grounded on patterns of material inference called argumentation schemes, which can account for the reconstruction and the evaluation of relevance relations. In order to account for relevance in different types of dialogical contexts, pursuing also non-cognitive goals, and measuring the scalar strength of relevance, communicative acts are conceived as dialogue moves, whose coherence with the previous ones or the context is represented as the conclusion of steps of material inferences. Such inferences are described (...) using argumentation schemes and are evaluated by considering 1) their defeasibility, and 2) the acceptability of the implicit premises on which they are based. The assessment of both the relevance of an utterance and the strength thereof depends on the evaluation of three interrelated factors: 1) number of inferential steps required; 2) the types of argumentation schemes involved; and 3) the implicit premises required. (shrink)