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Reflections on How Adults Respond to Children’s Contributions in Children–Adult Argumentative Interactions

by Elisa Angiolini and Céline Miserez-Caperos

Educ. Sci. 2025, 15(8), 1069; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15081069 - 20 Aug 2025

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This paper aims to analyze adults’ responses to children’s argumentative contributions within children–adult dialogic interactions. More precisely, we focus on the phenomenon of children opening subdiscussions within argumentative interactions with peers and adults. This phenomenon occurs when a child problematizes and calls into question some proposition in the ongoing discussion, hence the opening of a subdiscussion is an initiative that comes as unexpected from the perspective of the adult. In this contribution, we examine what happens after a child opens a subdiscussion and how the adult’s reaction to such initiatives can shape the development of dialogue. This means that we observe adult behaviour in dialogic interactions with children, given the complexity of the adult’s role in such interactions. Drawing on the dialogical approach to argumentation, we present and discuss some excerpts of children–adult subdiscussions at a kindergarten. The data analysis uses concepts and tools from a linguistics-based approach to argumentation, i.e., the pragma-dialectical theory, and it highlights conversational dynamics of children–adult argumentative discourse. The study’s contribution is twofold: (1) it presents the important and delicate role of the adult in dialogic children–adult interactions; (2) it shows how the development of children’s arguments is intrinsically linked to the flexibility of the discussion space organized by the adult. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dialogic Pedagogy in Early Childhood Education)

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17 pages, 1300 KB

Open AccessArticle

Opinionated Opposition and Pragmatic Government: The Online Argumentation of Political Parties and Party Leaders during the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Election Campaign

by Vanessza Juhász and Márton Bene

Journal. Media 2022, 3(4), 733-749; https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3040049 - 21 Nov 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3209

Abstract

The current paper studies the 2022 parliamentary election campaign, in regards to what extent and quality certain elements of political debate can appear in political actors’ social media communication. During our research, we analyzed 2441 Facebook posts from parties and party leaders prior to the election. According to our results, political actors engage in opinionated discourse on social media and largely focus on public policy issues. They rarely rely on factual reasoning; instead, they tend to use individual phenomena to justify their claims. Ad hominem fallacy also plays a significant role in their Facebook posts when they are making an argument. However, other argumentation errors, so-called fallacies are quite rare in their communication. The main patterns are similar between the actors, but in general, parties and politicians from the opposition are more argumentative compared to the ruling party coalitions. Full article

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19 pages, 472 KB

Open AccessArticle

Argumentation in the Interpretation of Statutory Law and International Law: Not Ejusdem Generis

by Jennifer Smolka

Languages 2022, 7(2), 132; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020132 - 24 May 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4000

Abstract

This contribution bridges three fields—pragmatics, argumentation, and law. Arguments can be seen as the verbal formulation of inferences that articulate justificatory relationships, meaning that behind every argument is at least one argumentative inference. As an argumentative activity and verbal practice, legal discourse has gaps to be filled by pragmatic inference. Neo- and post-Gricean frameworks can thus tentatively be used for its analysis. Based on these frameworks, this contribution asks whether argumentation in the interpretation of statutory law is the same as in international law. More precisely, it looks at judges’ legal interpretations, which function as justifying arguments because they are constrained by rules/canons of interpretation. It is shown that neither a pragma-dialectical hierarchy of statutory canons nor a hierarchy of related presumptions carries over to international law where there is no such hierarchy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pragmatics and Argumentation)

25 pages, 386 KB

Open AccessArticle

The Pragma-Dialectics of Dispassionate Discourse: Early Nyāya Argumentation Theory

by Malcolm Keating

Religions 2021, 12(10), 875; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100875 - 14 Oct 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4045

Abstract

Analytic philosophers have, since the pioneering work of B.K. Matilal, emphasized the contributions of Nyāya philosophers to what contemporary philosophy considers epistemology. More recently, scholarly work demonstrates the relevance of their ideas to argumentation theory, an interdisciplinary area of study drawing on epistemology as well as logic, rhetoric, and linguistics. This paper shows how early Nyāya theorizing about argumentation, from Vātsyāyana to Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, can fruitfully be juxtaposed with the pragma-dialectic approach to argumentation pioneered by Frans van Eemeren. I illustrate the implications of this analysis with a case study from Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s satirical play, Much Ado about Religion (Āgamaḍambara). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophical Concepts in the Hindu Tradition: Global Impact)

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