Credible as Evidence? Multilayered Audience Reception of Narrative Arguments

Abstract

Building on a view of both narration and argumentation as dynamic concepts, this paper considers ways of assessing the credibility of narrative arguments constructed in empirical examples of conversational discourse. I argue that the key in any such exercise is to pay close attention to both structural and pragmatic details, particularly how conversational storytelling gets embedded in the surrounding discourse and how the way this is discursively accomplished vis-à-vis the narrators’ multilayered audience may be reflective of their argumentative goals.

Argumentation in Early Childhood: A Systematic Review

“…By extension, we also call for a continued cross-fertilization between theoretical approaches as well as a scientifically rigorous interrogation of potential connections and overlaps between very young children's argumentation and related concepts that were not specifically targeted in this review, such as sustained shared thinking (Siraj et al, 2015), inferential thinking (Collins, 2016), or the even broader concepts of exploratory talk (Mercer & Wegerif, 1998) and low-structured sensemaking, employed in Rapanta & Felton's (2022) review to describe argumentation activity in early school grades. Rather than assuming the logico-rational conceptualization of argumentation as the only valid vantage point, rendering children's argumentation a priori as mostly fallacious or deficient and hence not meriting the label in any positive sense, such pursuits may add a new layer to the ongoing conceptual debate within argumentation studies on what forms of argument qualify as such and why (see, e.g., Birdsell & Groarke, 1996;Bubikova-Moan, 2021;Tindale, 2017;Tseronis & Forceville, 2017). In our view, a continued exploration of these and other relevant issues through a sustained scientific effort will advance not only our understanding of the multifaceted nature of argumentation as a quintessential form of human communication but also how the early capacities to argue develop and can be nourished in developmentally sensitive ways so that children can grow to become rigorous arguers and critical thinkers of tomorrow.…”