a b s t r a c tIn this paper, front covers of news magazines are studied as a distinct multimodal genre that invites readers to buy the magazine not only by attracting their attention but also by assuming a position with respect to the particular cover story. In order to account for the argument that a front cover may convey in support of that position, an argumentative reconstruction is required that also needs to take seriously into account the way in which the verbal and the visual modes interact to create meaning. The study proposes a multimodal argumentation perspective on the systematic reconstruction of the arguments that front covers of news magazines put forward. As a case in point, six covers by two German weekly news magazines are analysed, featuring the role of Greece in the eurozone crisis in the period
In this paper, I explore the potential of systematically studying the linguistic surface of discourse for the purposes of identifying markers of argumentative moves and other related categories, such as types of arguments and argumentative strategies. Such a list of argumentative markers can prove useful for the (semi)automatic treatment of a large corpus of texts. After reviewing literature on the linguistic realization of argumentative moves as well as literature on the subject of discourse markers, it becomes clear that the search for representative items of argumentative markers cannot be restricted to those elements marking relations but that it should also include elements that signal a certain function that is of pertinence to argumentative analysis. In this view, argumentative markers can be any single or complex lexical expression as well as a discursive configuration whose presence in a given utterance marks that utterance or the one preceding/following it, or a larger piece of discourse as having a certain argumentative function (as an argumentative move, a type of argument or an argumentative strategy). Examples taken from a French corpus on the controversy surrounding the development and applications of nanotechnology currently under study are used to illustrate the different types of argumentative markers proposed.
What would the consequences be for the interpretation and analysis of arguments if we were to accept that communication, within which arguments are produced and interpreted, involves the intricate use of more than just the verbal mode? In this paper, I discuss the shortcomings of the conception of argument as a purely verbal phenomenon and of the mere juxtaposition of the visual argument to the verbal, as suggested in the discourses of the sceptics and the advocates and of “visual” argument, respectively. Instead I propose a multimodal perspective on the analysis of argumentative discourse, according to which there is no a priori division of labor between the verbal and the visual mode, and attention is paid both to the (verbal and visual) content and to the (verbal and visual) style. In this view, argument is neither verbal nor visual, since argument is not to be defined on the basis of the verbal, visual or other semiotic means by which it is realized in communication. As a case in point, I analyze an ad campaign for the promotion of the British newspaper The Guardian in the United States.
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