About the Faculty
Argumentation
Research
Argumentation in Discourse
For an overview of the department's research activities in 2007 and the results of a research quality assesment (1997-2006), use the links below.
Attachments
reasearch_quality_assesmentResearch Programme 2005-2009: Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse
The pragma- dialectical theory of argumentation developed by Van Eemeren and Grootendorst enables the analyst of argumentative discourse to make a normative reconstruction that results in an analytic overview of all elements in the discourse that are pertinent to a critical evaluation. This reconstruction can be further refined and better accounted for if the standard version of the pragma-dialectical theory is extended by including a rhetorical dimension. Developing such an extended theory, which enables also a more realistic treatment of the fallacies in the evaluation of argumentative disourse, is Van Eemeren and Houtlosser's aim in their project Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse.
Project cluster 1:
Reasonableness conditions for strategic maneuvering
Frans van Eemeren
Viewing strategic maneuvering as a means of balancing in argumentative discourse ones dialectical obligations and ones rhetorical aims, the participants in this project cluster aim to formulate the reasonableness conditions for strategic maneuvering and the criteria for identifying and evaluating derailments of strategic maneuvering that can be considered fallacious moves in argumentative discourse.
Project cluster 3:
Strategic maneuvering in institutionalised discourse
Eveline T. Feteris
This project cluster aims at developing instruments for analysing and evaluating argumentative discourse in institutional settings. It concentrates primarily on the reconstruction of argumentation in legal discourse and political discussions. The research concentrates on the institutional requirements and goals that influence both the procedure and the content of argumentation and the strategic maneuveres that are used for resolving differences of opinion in legal and political settings and on the specific requirements for the rationality that are pertinent to legal and political discourse.
Project cluster 4:
Persuasive effects of strategic maneuvring
Bert Meuffels
Conceptions of Reasonableness (2000-2005) is a comprehensive research project aimed at systematically testing the ‘intersubjective validity' of the pragma-dialectical rules for critical discussion empirically. In a general sense, the results provide insight into ordinary language users' rationality or reasonableness conceptions and in the consistency of these conceptions. The results of the project are an excellent basis for the next comprehensive empirical project that focuses on the persuasive effects of strategic manoeuvring.