No abstract

This article seeks to extend existing models of argumentation by considering an important dimension of real-life argumentative discourse: how complex argumentative discussions evolve over time. We define a complex argumentative discussion as a multi-issue discussion, in which the different issues are interrelated in the form of a hierarchy. We claim that justified reframing might be used to transform a single-issue argumentative discussion into a complex argumentative discussion. To illustrate this, we examine the Facebook discourse of the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa. We analyse how reframing is justified by means of arguments, allowing the protagonists to claim as legitimate their reframing of a single issue into a complex argumentative discussion. Our findings complement existing sociological research on social movements by highlighting how their goals are achieved by means of argumentative discourse.

Examining a multilingual dataset of Twitter and Instagram messages posted by a variety of actors (NGOs and individual activists, small brands, and others) during the 2020 and 2021 Fashion Revolution Week campaigns for a more sustainable fashion system, we analyze frequently occurring discursive representations and self-representations that include individual mentions of persons or small brands. We show that individual mentions are mostly proposed in the tweets and Instagram messages posted by small brands and that they count as argumentation from example. Arguments based on a locus from example are part of two simultaneous argumentative patterns, responding to different issues and using two different maxims, respectively based on induction and from a principle ‘from truth to possibility’; in the latter case, brands represent themselves as best practice cases, showing that a more sustainable fashion system is possible because it is already happening. Our findings contribute to explaining how the activity type of digital activism successfully integrates multiple goals of different actors (citizens, NGOs, brands) in the campaigning by offering the possibility of simultaneous argumentation.

Chiara Mercuri, San Luigi e la crociata, p. 221-241. Nate in un momento di stasi della spinta crociata e di declino dei suoi ideali, le crociate di Luigi vengono a situarsi in un momento di «passaggio». Valutando spesso gli esiti più che i propositi di quelle imprese, esse sono state viste dalla storiografia degli ultimi cinquant'anni o come anacronistici ritorni al passato o corne precorritrici di quella mentalità coloniale che avrebbe caratterizzato la politica estera degli stati nazionali in età moderna. Tentando di ricostruire i propositi e le aspettative che spinsero Luigi IX a dedicare più di venti anni della sua vita a tale impresa, si è cercato di ricollocarla nel suo specifico contesto storico : quello di un secolo profondamente segnato da una mentalità penitenziale, cui erano care le pratiche del pellegrinaggio e della meditazione sulla «passio Christi».

This paper investigates the relationship between characterization frames and argumentation in activists’ discourse about the public controversy surrounding fashion sustainability. While previous studies proposing an argumentative approach to frames have acknowledged that frames are related to underlying implicit premises, how frames select certain implicit premises still needs to be systematically explained. Therefore, drawing on a theoretical framework combining Pragma dialectics (van Eemeren 2010) with the Argumentum Model of Topics an empirical analysis of a social media corpus has been performed in order to examine the connection between characterization frames and underlying implicit premises. This paper offers both a methodological and a theoretical contribution. From a methodological point of view, it offers linguistic-discursive tools for the analysis of characterization frames. From a theoretical perspective, it shows how characterization frames contribute to construct endoxa, i.e. underlying implicit premises, through argumentative patterns.