Interpersonal argumentation in educational and professional contexts 978-3-319-59084-4, 3319590847, 978-3-319-59083-7

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxii
Inter-generational Argumentation: Children’s Account Work During Dinner Conversations in Italy and Sweden (Franco Pauletto, Karin Aronsson, Francesco Arcidiacono)....Pages 1-26
What Can Studying Designed Marital Argument Interventions Contribute to Argumentation Scholarship? (Harry Weger Jr.)....Pages 27-46
Reading Together: The Interplay Between Social and Cognitive Aspects in Argumentative and Non-argumentative Dialogues (Nevena Buđevac, Francesco Arcidiacono, Aleksandar Baucal)....Pages 47-73
The Role of the Teacher in Promoting Argumentative Interactions in the Learning Contexts of Higher Education (Antonio Bova)....Pages 75-93
The Epidemic Effect of Scaffolding Argumentation in Small Groups to Whole-Class Teacher-Led Argumentation (Baruch B. Schwarz, Irit Cohen, Yaakov Ophir)....Pages 95-115
Processes of Negotiation in Socio-scientific Argumentation About Vegetarianism in Teacher Education (María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre, Pablo Brocos)....Pages 117-139
Argumentation and Conflict Management in Online Epistemic Communities: A Narrative Approach to Wikipedia Debates (Michael J. Baker, Françoise Détienne, Flore Barcellini)....Pages 141-157
The Interplay of Argumentative Dialogues and Work Observations in Collective Reflection for Work Transformation. Cross Self-confrontations in a Public Health Institution (Laure Kloetzer)....Pages 159-181
Imaginary Scenarios as Resources to Argue for Treatment Advice in Cancer Consultations (Francesca Alby, Marilena Fatigante, Cristina Zucchermaglio)....Pages 183-195
Notes on Similarities and Differences in Studying Argumentation: A Synthetic View (Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono)....Pages 197-200
Argumentation in Dialogue: Final Conclusions (Antonio Iannaccone, Francesco Arcidiacono)....Pages 201-218
Back Matter ....Pages 219-223

Citation preview

Francesco Arcidiacono Antonio Bova Editors

Interpersonal Argumentation in Educational and Professional Contexts

Interpersonal Argumentation in Educational and Professional Contexts

Francesco Arcidiacono Antonio Bova •

Editors

Interpersonal Argumentation in Educational and Professional Contexts

123

Editors Francesco Arcidiacono HEP-BEJUNE University of Teacher Education Biel/Bienne Switzerland

ISBN 978-3-319-59083-7 DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-59084-4

Antonio Bova Università della Svizzera italiana Lugano Switzerland

ISBN 978-3-319-59084-4

(eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017941464 © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

When I was asked by one of my best former students, Francesco Arcidiacono, currently professor at the University of Teacher Education BEJUNE in Biel/Bienne, and by his collaborator, Dr. Antonio Bova, to write a foreword for their relevant book on “Interpersonal Argumentation in Educational and Professional Contexts,” I was looking at the impressive collection of scientific contributions, within a large set of national realities, that are included in the present volume. These papers strongly contribute to the further development of research on argumentative dimensions connected to educational and professional contexts, because of their nature of distinctive and new contributions in the field of argumentation. This topic and the current state of the field are well represented in this volume and offered me the possibility to look back at my past experiences in studying argumentation in Italian schools over the last 40 years. In fact, in the 1980s, through studying classroom discussions on curricula in biology, physics and social history, chosen by ourselves in fifth grade classrooms, we observed, through the careful and repeated reading of the transcripts of didactic interactions, how children of primary school were solicited to develop their reasoning and explanation in order to answer to the pertinent objections of a classmate (that we have indicated as “sceptic” by virtue of a dissatisfaction by the explanations advanced by others). When teachers were open to giving children the freedom to express their ideas (as was the case of two excellent teachers, Delia Castiglia and Ornella Formentini, participating in our research at the Montessori school “S.M. Goretti” in Rome), the great educational relevance of verbal interactions among children of different social status was immediately visible. My idea at that time (Pontecorvo 1987) was firstly based, at a theoretical level, on the pivotal works of Toulmin (1958) and of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1971) that had the merit to value the classical rhetoric tradition. However, I was learning something very interesting by listening to a sentence produced by a child of 2.5 years, Marianna, the daughter of two friends who were guests in my countryside home. The child was eating vanilla and chocolate ice cream offered to her and, when the mother (an excellent scientist of child development and expert in health) entered the room, said: “But the vanilla is healthy!” avoiding any reference v

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to chocolate and showing the need to account for her action by a valid argument, preventing possible comments against the mother’s objection to commercial ice cream. During that period of research, as one of the main interest was the scientific thought of children (especially within the research group Università-Scuola, G.U.S. in 1979), I was regularly invited to the “Journées internationales sur l’éducation scientifique” promoted by André Giordan in Chamonix during the period of January and February of 1983 and 1984. During these meetings, I was discovering the works of Ducrot (1980) and Caron (1983) that were showing to what extent, even in the course of ordinary conversation (written and oral), there are different degrees and scales of argumentation, referred to various knowledge values. In addition, by developing the work on the scientific curriculum, we become more and more aware of the connection between opposing, arguing and explaining (cf. Pontecorvo 1983, 1990). Always in Chamonix (Giordan and Martinand 1984) I was in charge, with Jean Mathieu, of a seminar of discussion about the argumentative strategies (with the participation, among others, of colleagues such as Caravita, Caron, Coty, Gagliardi, Lammé, Vermès and Wermus). During the very intense verbal interactions of the group we were debating different interesting topics, such as the need to go beyond the opposition between natural and scientific thoughts, scientific explanation and argumentative thinking. We were mainly oriented towards an educational approach valuing classroom discussion as a powerful tool to promote effective argumentation and to construct the scientific thought and discourse of children. Later on, during the biennial EARLI congresses, I was confronted with the studies on argumentation done by Baruch Schwarz and colleagues (Schwarz and Glassner 2003). In his original research (Schwarz 2011), he was studying the discussions on Talmud among students of Yeshivà (Israeli institutes to train the rabbis). These contributions were opening new avenues in the field of argumentation that is still of actual interest, as it is the case in the present volume. In the further works of my research group, we discovered the relevance of the child’s position as a sign of “assuming a point of view” within a small group (see the volume presented in 1991 “Discutendo si impara” edited by Pontecorvo, Ajello and Zucchermaglio; and Orsolini and Pontecorvo 1992), and not only during classroom discussion, when the teacher is able to uptake a valuable child’s intervention which is not considered by other interlocutors. The cited book has been frequently used in the Italian school system and has been translated into Portuguese and published in Brazil (Pontecorvo et al. 2005). In addition, we were experiencing other designs involving small groups of kindergarten and primary school children (Pontecorvo 1993). These studies have indicated interesting key points in the field of educational argumentation and have inspired new directions, as it is the case for some of the works presented in this volume. These contributions have the merit of expanding and improving our knowledge about the interpersonal dimensions connected to argumentation. A few years beforehand, we were discovering the relevant work of Michael Billig (1987). I was impressed by the extended use of ancient sources, including the

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studies of Greek rhetoric, as well as the use of the famous story of Rav Eliezer (presented in the Babylonian Talmud, the Tractatus Baba Metzia): in discussing the ritual cleaning of an oven with students, Rav Eliezer defends a thesis that is not accepted by others; after having recalled two miraculous events which really happened (the moving of a carob tree and the removing of an external wall of the house) to sustain the thesis, he appeals to God’s intervention and got it. Consequently, the group of Rabbis opposes God and cites from the Bible that “the law is not in the sky (…) and a legal decision does not depend on the age of the teacher but on the power of his/her argumentation.” As it was expected, the volume of Billig produced a revolutionary effect within the field of contemporary social psychology, even as product of the research group “Discourse and Rhetoric” at the University of Loughborough, also involving Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell, as well as Derek Edwards and David Middleton, from whom I read various research concerning different social contexts and whom I met several times during EARLI congresses. Concerning Billig’s conception, he affirms that all essential cognitive activities are produced by a discourse of several participants, even within memory. Thus, what is considered in the psychology field as an individual mental activity is a collective product (as it emerges from a book written in 1990 by Edwards and Middleton on remembering). Thanks to Billig we have discovered the role of Bakhtin, who, translated into English few times before, underlined, by citing Plato, the function of dialogue, in which truth “shoots like a spark” in the relationship between two speakers (p. 29). The interactionist and discursive conception of thought was connected to our constant re-reading of “Thought and Language” written by Vygotskij (1990), and also to a new attention for the work of Hannah Arendt for whom “the individual thought is a form of internal dialogue” (p. 42). Different contributions in this volume are excellent examples of how these conceptions are still relevant in educational and professional contexts in which interpersonal argumentation plays a central role. Research on children of fourth grade in a school of Rome, starting from a written document of a Roman historian, led us to discover the presence of a counterfactual reasoning in autonomous discussions of small groups: through analysing this reasoning, I had the privilege to be accompanied by Merrilee Salmon, excellent professor of informal logics at the University of Pittsburgh, and really interested by the collective argumentation of our Italian fourth grade children (Girardet and Pontecorvo 1993). Having those conceptual and methodological tools at our disposal, in 1991 (during the ISCRAT Congress in Lahti, Finland, during a seminar on literacy led by Elinor Ochs) we discovered the Conversation Analysis (CA) as a powerful tool to read and interpret human interaction in different contexts (Ochs 1986). Consequently, we started a national research project (in an analogous way to the research that Elinor Ochs was conducting at the same time in Los Angeles) on dinnertime conversations of Italian middle-class families. This topic is still constituting a relevant field of research within educational argumentation, as showed in one of the contributions in this volume. In my experience, the CA approach had the merit to solicit a collaborative process of work and analysis: in fact, the researcher Alessandra Fasulo and (at that time) the advanced Ph.D. student Laura Sterponi,

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both experts of CA, were members of the research group and fully immersed in the context of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The group included four new Ph.D. students (Francesco Arcidiacono, Marilena Fatigante, Vivian Liberati and Barbara Maroni), as well as a variable number of master students in developmental and educational psychology, under my supervision. During that period, we received a visit from Dr. Tania Zittoun (currently professor of education at the University of Neuchâtel). Tania Zittoun was immediately interested in the cooperative atmosphere of the group, in which the master students were in primis referring to one of the Ph.D. students and only later discussing their works within the whole research group. This modality of reciprocal and collaborative teaching and learning could have been an input for the promotion of a further international seminar organized by Tania Zittoun with her colleagues Baucal, Cornish and Gillespie, and sponsored by the European Science Foundation, on the issue of “collaboration in psychological research,” in Veysonnaz (Switzerland) in June 2006, which included five collaborative case studies. At the meeting were international well-known researchers, among which Engeström, proposing his applicative research in different social contexts (based on the Activity Theory of Leont’ev), Plichova and Marková, studying prospective ideological variables in Eastern European countries at the end of the Soviet period. However, the research that was probably among the most interesting for me was the study “DUNES” coordinated by Baruch Schwarz in collaboration with a Swiss group headed by Michèle Grossen about the argumentative education and the relevant informatics implications. The connection between educational aspects and technological innovations in the field of argumentation is well highlighted by some of the contributions of the present volume. I apologize to my friends and editors of the book if their request for a foreword has activated such an autobiographical personal discovery of the relevance of argumentation, in connection to the volume’s contributions of many other excellent colleagues. The international dimension of the various papers is a relevant aspect and a merit of the present book: the study of interpersonal argumentation in different contexts and realities strongly contributes to understanding the complexity of socio-cultural dimensions connected to argumentative processes. More recently, I have been thinking about the fact that, starting from the doctoral study on Italian families conducted by Laura Sterponi, we have understood the relevance of parental requests towards children, of the need to account for a violation (action) or for incorrect verbal expressions. These requests are almost absent within the middle-class family interactions studied by Ochs in Los Angeles (Ochs and Taylor 1992), in which children obey very quickly to parental directives. It is unique that a request of account in family plays the role of promoting the children argumentation (Pontecorvo and Arcidiacono 2016), as well as that the opposition solicited in classroom discussions promotes argumentation and counter-argumentation in kindergarten and primary children. It is possible that the role of verbal opposition, at least in Italian families, is played by an attempt of not complying to disobey parental requests. However, by recognizing in this important volume the multiple settings that concern the use of argumentative strategies that are analogous yet

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varied, I must observe to what extent argumentation can be used also beyond school and family contexts. It is possible that the educational context keeps a type of ontogenetic priority, while the application to contexts of professional training or different organizations opens new relevant perspectives. I believe that this volume will contribute to the further development of interpersonal argumentation based on a common socio-cultural ground and varied applications to different social contexts. Clotilde Pontecorvo “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy

References Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Caron, J. (1983). Les régulations du discours. Paris: PUF. Ducrot, O. (1980). Les échelles argumentatives. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. Edwards, D., & Middleton, D. (1990). Collective remembering. London: Sage. Giordan, A., & Martinand, J. L. (1984). Journées internationales sur l’éducation scientifique, Chamonix: D.C.R.I. Girardet, H., & Pontecorvo, C. (1993). Arguing and reasoning in understanding historical topics. Cognition and Instruction, 11, 365–395. G.U.S. (1979). L’educazione scientifica di base. Florence: La Nuova Italia. Ochs, E. (1986). Introduction. In B. Schieffelin & E. Ochs (Eds.), Language socialization across cultures (pp. 1–13). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, E., & Taylor, C. (1992). Family narrative as political activity. Discourse & Society, 3(3), 301–340. Orsolini, M., & Pontecorvo, C. (1992). Children’s talk in classroom discussions. Cognition and Instruction, 9(2), 113–136. Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1971). The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Pontecorvo, C. (1983). Children’s science, children’s thinking, what is it about? In D. E. Hadary & M. Vicentini (Eds.), Proceedings of US—Italy Joint Seminar on Science Education for Elementary School Children. CEDE, The American University. Pontecorvo, C. (1987), Discussing for reasoning: The role of argument in knowledge construction. In E. De Corte, J. G. L. C. Lodewijks, R. Parmentier & P. Span (Eds.), Learning and instruction (71–82). Leuven: Leuven University Press. Pontecorvo, C. (1990). Opposition, explication et invocation des règles dans la discussion en classe entre enfants de cinq ans. In Actes du Colloque International “Le Jeune Enfant et l’Explication”. Paris: CALAP. Pontecorvo, C. (1993). Forms of discourse and shared thinking. Cognition and Instruction, 3, 189–196. Pontecorvo, C., Ajello, A. M., & Zucchermaglio, C. (1991). Discutendo si impara. Rome: Carocci. Pontecorvo, C., Ajello, A. M., & Zucchermaglio, C. (2005). Discutindo se aprende. Porto Alegre: Artmed. Pontecorvo, C., & Arcidiacono, F. (2016). The dialogic construction of justifications and arguments in a seven-year-old child within a “democratic” family. Language and Dialogue, 6(2), 306–328.

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Schwarz, B. B. (2011). “Hevruta” learning in Lithuanian Yeshivas: Recurrent learning of Talmudic issues. In I. Etkes, T. El’or, M. Heyd & B. B. Schwarz (Eds.), Education and religion: Authority and autonomy (pp. 279–308). Jerusalem: Magness Publishing House. Schwarz, B. B., & Glassner, A. (2003). Construction of collective and individual knowledge in argumentative activity: An empirical study. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 12(2), 221–258. Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The uses of argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vygotskij, L. S. (1990). Pensiero e linguaggio [Thought and Language, orig. ed. 1934]. Bari: Laterza.

Contents

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Inter-generational Argumentation: Children’s Account Work During Dinner Conversations in Italy and Sweden . . . . . . . . . . Franco Pauletto, Karin Aronsson and Francesco Arcidiacono 1.1 Accounts and Family Inter-generational Argumentation . . . 1.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Laments and Plaintive/Pleading Voice as Account Work: Preschool-Age Children’s Proto-Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Repeats and Want-Statements as Account Work: Preschool-Age Children’s Proto-Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Varied Verbal Accounts by School-Age Children . . . . . . . . 1.6 Irony as Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7 Prior Contracts as Arguments: School-Age Children . . . . . 1.8 Language Socialization and Intergenerational Argumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix: Transcription Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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What Can Studying Designed Marital Argument Interventions Contribute to Argumentation Scholarship? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Harry Weger Jr. 2.1 History of Marital Intervention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Marriage Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The PAIRS Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Fair Fight for Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 Talking Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3 Daily Temperature Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.4 Initiation and Conclusion of PAIRS Communication Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The PREP Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Speaker–Listener Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Problem Solving Discussion Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3 Friendship and Commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Evaluating Designed Marital Argumentation Interventions . . . . . 2.5.1 Design Hypotheses 1: Marital Interaction is a Designable Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.2 Design Hypothesis 2: Marital Argumentation Involves Multiple Goals that are Best Managed Individually Rather Than Simultaneously . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.3 Design Hypothesis 3: “Good” Arguments Results in a Resolution of the Problem Without Damaging the Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Reading Together: The Interplay Between Social and Cognitive Aspects in Argumentative and Non-argumentative Dialogues . . . . . Nevena Buđevac, Francesco Arcidiacono and Aleksandar Baucal 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Learning Through Social Interaction Among Peers . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The Interweaving of Social and Cognitive Aspects in Regulating Joint Activities of Solving Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Towards an Understanding of the Impact of Regulating Social Relations on Joint Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.1 Sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.2 Data Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.3 Transcription Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.4 Analytical Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Analysis and Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6.1 Excerpts for the Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1: Transcription Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of the Teacher in Promoting Argumentative Interactions in the Learning Contexts of Higher Education . . . Antonio Bova 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Argumentation Studies in Learning Contexts of Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Data Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4.3.2 Students’ Level of Knowledge of the Discipline . . 4.3.3 Data Collection and Transcription Procedures . . . . 4.3.4 Ethical Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.5 Analytical Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.6 Selection of Argumentative Discussions . . . . . . . . 4.3.7 Identification of the Types of Questions . . . . . . . . 4.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Teacher’s BROAD QUESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.2 Teacher’s SPECIFIC QUESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1: Teacher–Student Dialogue in the Academic Context Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 3: Teacher–Student Dialogue in the Academic Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The Epidemic Effect of Scaffolding Argumentation in Small Groups to Whole-Class Teacher-Led Argumentation . . . . . . . . Baruch B. Schwarz, Irit Cohen and Yaakov Ophir 5.1 Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Pilot Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Description of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Population. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 The Program of Intervention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 The First Round (Teachers 1 and 2) . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.3 The Second Round (Teachers 3 and 4) . . . . . . . . . 5.5.4 The Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.5 Interviews of Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Collection and Analysis of Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Findings for the First Research Question (Improvement of Guided Small-Group Discussions) . . . . . . 5.7.1 Active Participation During the Discussion . . . . . . 5.7.2 Characteristics of the Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.3 Pragmatics and Meta-Pragmatics in Students’ Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.4 Transformation of Ideas and Elaboration of Arguments in Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7.5 Teachers’ Structuring of the Discussions . . . . . . . . 5.8 Findings for the Second Research Question (Improvement of Guided Whole-Class Discussions) . . . . . . 5.9 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Processes of Negotiation in Socio-scientific Argumentation About Vegetarianism in Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre and Pablo Brocos 6.1 Introduction: Two Perspectives on Studying Argumentation in Science Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Rationale: Argumentative Interactions as Negotiation Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Argumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 Negotiation Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Participants, Educational Context, and Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 The Task: Constructing Arguments About Diets . . . . . . 6.3.3 Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Questions Negotiated, Weight of Evidence and Cultural Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Negotiation Paths and Mutual Appropriation of Interlocutors’ Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 Concluding Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Annex1. Task Handout: Building an Argument About Diets . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Argumentation and Conflict Management in Online Epistemic Communities: A Narrative Approach to Wikipedia Debates . . . . . . Michael J. Baker, Françoise Détienne and Flore Barcellini 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.1 Rules for Editing, Conflicts and Emerging Debates in Wikipedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.2 Aspects of Conflict Management in Argumentative Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 A Narrative Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Case-Study Analysis: “the Turin Shroud” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Teb’s Narrative (Synthesis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.1 The Turin Shroud: Summary of Argumentation and Conflict Management Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 Concluding Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Interplay of Argumentative Dialogues and Work Observations in Collective Reflection for Work Transformation. Cross Self-confrontations in a Public Health Institution . . . . . . . . . . 159 Laure Kloetzer 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

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Dialogue as a Way to Articulate Collective Reflection and Work Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Context and Goals of the Research Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 The Interplay of Work Observations and Argumentative Dialogues for the Development of Professional Reflection: The “Lunch Discussion” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 Conclusion: The Research Process as a «True Dialogue», Opening Spaces for Identification and Resolution of Conflictual Perspectives on Work Objects . . . . . . . . . . . Annex: French Original Version of the Selected Sequence . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Imaginary Scenarios as Resources to Argue for Treatment Advice in Cancer Consultations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Francesca Alby, Marilena Fatigante and Cristina Zucchermaglio 9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 Research Method, Data Corpus, and Analysis Procedures . . . . . 9.3 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.1 Imaginary Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.2 Simplified Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.3 Hypothetical Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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10 Notes on Similarities and Differences in Studying Argumentation: A Synthetic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Antonio Bova and Francesco Arcidiacono 11 Argumentation in Dialogue: Final Conclusions . . . . . . . . Antonio Iannaccone and Francesco Arcidiacono 11.1 The Dialogue as a Source of Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Around Two Epistemologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.1 Formal Versus Informal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.2 Monologic Versus Dialogic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.3 Decontextualized Versus Contextualized . . . 11.2.4 Symmetric Versus Asymmetric . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.5 Temporal Perception Versus A-Temporal Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.6 Consciousness Versus Exteriorization . . . . . 11.3 Towards a Pedagogical Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Interpersonal Dynamics within Argumentative Interactions: An Introduction

Argumentation is an important dimension of educational and professional activities. It plays a special role, not only because it is a relevant competence to deal with contradictions, doubts and complex decisions, but also because argumentation can be used to sustain or foster reasoning and learning in many educational and professional contexts. In this vein, argumentation is not intended as limited to formal debate but includes as well interpersonal everyday efforts to engage in discussions with others, in order to co-construct knowledge and meaning and to better understand how to make decisions and to negotiate positions. The tradition of philosophical and linguistic investigations about argumentation is very impressive. However, only recently, researchers’ attention has been directed to the study of the interpersonal dynamics within argumentative interactions. By interpersonal argumentation we refer to the individual, social and contextual processes that contribute to the understanding of argumentative interactions as constructive exchanges (e.g. leading the co-construction of knowledge, meaning, problem-solving) in different educational and professional settings. Especially in educational contexts and in some other professional fields, the following pivotal epistemological and empirical questions are still open: How some forms of negotiation, change and debate could result from engaging in interpersonal processes during argumentation? How interpersonal dimensions affect the interdependencies between argumentative exchanges and construction of knowledge and skills? This volume is a contribution to clarify aspects connected to these open questions. The book is intended to provide a comprehensive view of empirical studies based on different approaches devoted to examine the interpersonal argumentative processes involved in a number of educational and professional contexts. The common issues the book addresses concern the analysis of how people argue in different contexts in order to identify similarities and differences in the modes and concepts related to specific fields, and to examine argumentative strategies that are suitable for learning, knowledge orientation and decision-making processes. By adopting psychological, educational and linguistic approaches, the empirical studies presented in this volume focus on the most representative educational contexts, such as family (parent–child and couple interactions) and school xvii

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(pre-service teachers, primary and middle school, higher education), and on the professional situations that have attracted, in the last years, a particular attention by researchers interested in argumentation, namely the medical contexts (doctor–patient, health institutions and nurse interactions) and new media (online debates, Wikipedia). These studies provide an accessible discussion of selected theoretical and empirical issues at the forefront of research and ensure a view of how interpersonal argumentation in educational and professional contexts is actually questioned and investigated. Reading this book will provide an opportunity to discover the importance of the in-depth knowledge about the role and functions played by the interpersonal dynamics within argumentative interactions occurring in a wide sphere of educational and professional contexts. The volume offers different perspectives on these issues and the interdisciplinary effort made by the scholars that have contributed to the book and supported the development of original theoretical and methodological viewpoints based on relevant empirical research. The different authors, active in the fields of psychology, education and linguistics, share a common perspective on the crucial role of the interpersonal dimension of argumentation, seen as a practice in which individuals evaluate, criticize, challenge and revise claims through discourse. These aspects are the guideline throughout the volume and constitute the frameworks that are offered to read the different contributions about interpersonal aspects of argumentative activities observed and analysed in various educational and professional contexts. We are aware that other relevant issues remain uncovered by the present volume: it is the case, for instance, of the semiotic materialism or the issue of technology, or positioning theory inspired by Rom Harre’s work, among other issues. Although we recognize the relevance of these aspects, we have included a more substantial account of socio-cultural dimensions of argumentation, through an appeal to issues that seem likely of interest within educational sciences, mainly for researchers and advanced students in the area of argumentation. We also opted for an account of Bakhtinian versions of argumentation influenced by dialogism: this frame will be invoked in the final conclusions, in order to highlight a way to reflect on the various contributions presented in this volume through the lenses of a particular posture. As already claimed, the focus on interpersonal dynamics in various contexts constitutes the new contribution of the present volume. Chapter 1, “Inter-generational argumentation: Children’s account work during dinner conversations in Italy and Sweden”, written by Franco Pauletto, Karin Aronsson and Francesco Arcidiacono, illuminates how accountability is a core aspect of the intergenerational argumentation by family members during social interaction at dinnertime. In family life, intergenerational argumentation is a pervasive feature of everyday conversations: the dinner table is therefore a fruitful site for the study of multiparty argumentation and negotiation, as well as an arena where socialization into local norms and values takes place. By analysing family conversations, the authors show to what extent these occasions are events where participants successively negotiate mutual rights, obligations and accountabilities over time. After introducing the concepts of social accountability and language socialization,

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Pauletto and colleagues present an empirical study that explores how children’s accounts work during family conversations. In particular, argumentative resources deployed by parents and children are discussed in terms of social accountability and of the relevance that these strategies have as truly interactional accomplishments. In Chap. 2, “What can studying designed marital argument interventions contribute to argumentation scholarship?” Harry Weger Jr. presents and discusses a design approach to study marital argumentation as one feature of naturally occurring conversations in relationships. As argued by the author, perhaps because negotiating close personal relationships presents a set of similar challenges across couples and because married arguers share culturally embedded conversational rules and resources, several common stumbling blocks to successful management of disagreements emerge. In his chapter, Weger Jr. shows that the designed interaction structures developed by the marital education programs are attempts to overcome at least some of these stumbling blocks. After discussing specific communication tools from two marriage education programs, he identifies design hypotheses underlying the programs and explains what we might learn about argumentation in marriage from examining these designs. Chapter 3, “Reading together: The interplay between social and cognitive aspects in argumentative and non-argumentative dialogues”, written by Nevena Buđevac, Francesco Arcidiacono and Aleksandar Baucal, explores how social and cognitive aspects of learning through interactive activities are interrelated in children’s joint work. Focusing on participants’ talk while they are asked to solve together a reading comprehension task and to agree on a joint answer, the authors highlight different ways in which the process of dialogical construction of a common answer is influenced by social and cognitive factors. In particular, they problematize the interplay of multiple aspects (cognitive, personal and interpersonal) that structure interactions among peers in order to focus on the regulation of social relations during children’s discussions and its interplay with cognitive dimension of joint task solving. Chapter 4, “The role of teacher in promoting argumentative interactions in the learning contexts of higher education”, written by Antonio Bova, presents an empirical study aimed to examine the connection between types of teachers’ questions to the students and the beginning and the development of argumentative disciplinary discussions in university classroom. Bova focuses on the learning context of higher education and carefully examines how the teacher can promote argumentative disciplinary discussions in the classroom, i.e. task-related discussions concerning the discipline taught in the course, with and among students. The emphasis is on the types of questions used by the teacher with the students, with the aim to bring to light the connection between the types of questions asked by the teacher and the beginning and development of argumentative disciplinary discussions. Bova’s empirical study shows concretely how the teacher can play a crucial role in this endeavour and highlights the importance of a teachers’ training aimed at making these professionals aware of the role of questions in promoting effective argumentation in the classroom.

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Interpersonal Dynamics within Argumentative Interactions: An Introduction

Chapter 5, “The epidemic effect of scaffolding argumentation in small groups to whole-class teacher-led argumentation”, written by Baruch Schwarz, Irit Cohen and Yaakov Ophir, presents a study focusing on scaffolding argumentation in schools and where working separately with small groups in consecutive activities is part of a training about a pedagogical approach. In their chapter, the authors show how guidance and discussions progressively improve in their quality and have an epidemic effect in terms of the teachers’ guidance and of discussions in a whole-class context. In Chap. 6, “Processes of negotiation in socio-scientific argumentation about vegetarianism in teacher education”, María Pilar Jiménez Aleixandre and Paolo Brocos focus on the processes of negotiation involved in building a shared argument in a decision-making context. Their study deals with the question of the dimensions that have the greater weight in the negotiation processes and in the final decision of pre-service teachers, as well as with the question in which patterns, in terms of strategies and negotiation levels, reveal the negotiation paths in small groups. A detailed analysis of teachers’ argumentative exchanges illustrates how the process of negotiation proceeds from opposed alternatives and initial rejections, through a series of offers and acceptances. According to the authors, this process involves the actors in the appropriation of others’ dialogical contributions, making possible to reach a consensus through mutual concessions. In Chap. 7, “Argumentation and conflict management in online epistemic communities: A narrative approach to Wikipedia debates”, Michael J. Baker, Françoise Détienne and Flore Barcellini focus on the case of conflicts in Wikipedia, since widespread participation, coupled with the principle of neutrality of viewpoint, has led to “editing wars” (in particular, repeated text deletions and reverts). Baker and colleagues show that gaining a better understanding of conflicts and their resolution in online epistemic communities such as Wikipedia is important for the growing body of argumentation research in specific domains where knowledge elaboration is at stake. This is the case of collaborative learning and professional activities such as interactions within a collaborative design. By adopting a narrative approach, the authors show how the common conflict resolution strategy of requiring protagonists to cite precise sources in Wikipedia is not always successful. Accordingly, the requirements for achieving a neutral point of view cannot always be satisfied. In this sense, online epistemic communities are not only interpersonal, but can also be seen as power struggles for the territory of the articles that claim to represent the state of the debate in a public global arena. Chapter 8, “The interplay of argumentative dialogues and work observations in collective reflection for work transformation. Cross self-confrontations in a public health institution”, written by Laure Kloetzer, presents a study based on an intervention in cross self-confrontation, conducted in a public health institution hosting dependant older people and disabled adults. The goal of the contribution is to show what kinds of professional argumentation are held in this process. In her study, Kloetzer brings to light the importance of the careful observation of details of the work activity, through the analysis of collaborative processes of co-analysis in the development of the work argumentation, dialogue and shared reflection. Moreover,

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she shows how the experience of the participants to this dialogical framework impacts the types of professional dialogues that are usual and possible within the institution, at different levels: among the working groups of professional assistants participating in the research, within the direction of the institution, and between the first-line workers and the direction of the institution. Chapter 9, “It may also be the case that you say I don’t want to do it”. Imaginary scenarios as resources to argue for treatment advice in cancer consultations”, written by Francesca Alby, Marilena Fatigante and Cristina Zucchermaglio, explores argumentation in cancer consultations. Although studies that explicitly focus on this topic are still rare, the chapter is framed within the growing body of research that focuses on doctor–patient argumentative interactions. These studies suggest that “argumentation in medical consultations has a positive impact on patients’ perceived communication and satisfaction. By providing arguments, doctors convey their accountability for their viewpoints, refraining from claiming the role of the undisputed authority”. In their study, Alby and colleagues examine the argumentative practices used by an oncologist to persuade the patient and the family members about the appropriateness of a suggested treatment while eliciting compliance with what is recommended. The study highlights how different scenarios can be intended as useful devices in maintaining a balance, in oncologist– patient communication, between keeping a patient-centred focus and facilitating the acceptance of medical advice. A synthetic note on some similarities and differences among the contributions is provided as a final view: the goal is to account for the various modalities people use to argue in different contexts, the modes and concepts related to specific fields, and the argumentative strategies that are suitable for learning, knowledge orientation and decision-making processes. Two different dimensions are considered: the argumentative phase in which the exchanges are assumed (e.g. at the beginning, to favour the engagement into argumentative interactions; during an argumentative exchange already in progress; at the end of argumentative interactions) and the symmetric versus asymmetric nature of the argumentative exchanges and of its nature. Although these aspects substantially confirm issues that we already know from past studies, they are proposed as lenses to focus on similarities and differences across contexts, socio-cultural realities and processes that have been presented in this book. At the end of the volume, a concluding “dialogue” will involve two psychologists focussing their exchange on various dimensions that are connected to diverse epistemological premises and argumentative traditions. More precisely, the authors will assume the text of Galileo Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems —Ptolemaic and Copernican as a way to represent the dialogical bases of the science and the function of argumentation in the development of knowledge. Through this dialogue, a useful frame will be offered to the reader in order to look retroactively at the various chapters of the volume and to highlight the connections to different educational and professional contexts. Altogether, these contributions are intended to provide an accessible discussion of selected theoretical and empirical issues at the forefront of research, in order to

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ensure a view of how interpersonal argumentation in educational and professional contexts is actually questioned and investigated. Accordingly, the volume is intended for an interdisciplinary public, including not only researchers in language sciences but also scientists and professionals in the broader area of psychology and educational sciences whose research and activities intersect with issues of argumentation, social interactions and professional practices. Francesco Arcidiacono Antonio Bova

Chapter 1

Inter-generational Argumentation: Children’s Account Work During Dinner Conversations in Italy and Sweden Franco Pauletto, Karin Aronsson and Francesco Arcidiacono

In family life, inter-generational argumentation is a pervasive feature of dinnertime conversations (Arcidiacono and Bova 2013; Pontecorvo and Arcidiacono 2014). The dinnertable is therefore a fruitful site for the study of multiparty argumentation and negotiations, as well as an arena where socialization into local norms takes place (Blum-Kulka 1997; Ochs et al. 1996). In fact, dinnertime conversations are events where participants successively negotiate mutual rights, obligations, and accountabilities over time (Aronsson and Cekaite 2011; Hepburn and Potter 2011; Sterponi 2009). This chapter illuminates how accountability is a core aspect of the intergenerational argumentation by family members during social interaction at dinnertime. First, an introduction to the concepts of social accountability and language socialization will be provided. Some prior work has focused on mutual apprenticeship (Pontecorvo et al. 2001), but not much work has problematized how children deploy what we will call proto-accounts (laments, multiple repeats, want-statements) on the one hand, and varied verbal accounts, on the other, in relation to age class or prior language socialization experiences. Second, we will present our study on argumentation, exploring how children’s accounts work during family dinner conversations. Argumentative resources used by parents and children

F. Pauletto (&)
K. Aronsson Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] F. Arcidiacono University of Teacher Education (HEP-BEJUNE), Biel/Bienne, Switzerland © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 F. Arcidiacono and A. Bova (eds.), Interpersonal Argumentation in Educational and Professional Contexts, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-59084-4_1

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will be discussed in the final part of the chapter in terms of social accountability and the relevance that these strategies have as truly interactional accomplishments.1

1.1

Accounts and Family Inter-generational Argumentation

Social accountability is part of the fabrics of everyday life (Buttny 1993). Account work is seen as a social practice by which participants maintain or repair interactional alignment and tell their side of things (Buttny and Morris 2001). In line with prior research on explanations in social life, accounts appear both as excuses and as justifications for untoward events or taxing requests (Scott and Lyman 1968). As yet, though, most work on social accounts concerns adults argumentative work in conversation, for instance, as part of therapeutic or litigation processes (Buttny 1993; Edwards 1995, 2005). This chapter builds on prior work on social accounts but uses it as a theoretical point of departure for detailed analyses of children’s account work in everyday family life settings. More specifically, it explores the role of accounts and explanations in inter-generational encounters, extending earlier work on argumentation and accountability (Aukrust and Snow 1998; Bova and Arcidiacono 2013; Buttny 1993; Pontecorvo et al. 2001). Dinnertime is probably one of the few occasions where family members recurrently gather to bring about a joint activity, which makes this kind of event well suited to the analysis of family culture. A focus on language socialization (Ochs and Schieffelin 2012) and an interest in dinnertime interaction as “cultural sites for the socialization of persons into competent and appropriate members of society” (Ochs and Shohet 2006, p. 35) characterizes much prior work on inter-generational mealtime conversations. A classic study on language socialization at mealtime is the work by Ochs et al. (1996) where they, drawing on Bourdieu’s (1979) work on taste and distinctions, problematize how taste is not something given, but something that is talked into being as part of everyday dinner argumentation between parents and children. Moreover, they show how dinnertime talk in some cultural contexts might involve more inter-generational argumentation than in other cultural contexts. In the North American cultural context parents, for instance, primarily focus on social order and rewards and achievement (e.g., a “happy plate”, that is the child’s accomplishment of finishing food), rather than on the pleasure of eating, tasting, and savoring food.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation funded “Everyday Lives of Working Families: Italy, Sweden, and the United States”. Clotilde Pontecorvo led the Italian and Karin Aronsson the Swedish part of this project, modeled on and inspired by a larger research enterprise, initiated by Elinor Ochs at University of California, Los Angeles (USA). An early version of this paper was presented at 14th International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, July 26–31, 2015. Also, we would like to thank the participating families for opening up their homes and lives.

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Researchers have looked at the ways children are socialized to the use of language but also at how language use and culture mutually shape and reflect each other. Research on language socialization has dealt with different facets of food morality and the social order of mealtime activities. Food-related disputes and bargaining between parents and children, as well as socialization into food taste and values have been documented in several studies (Aronsson and Gottzén 2011; Grieshaber 1997; Ochs et al. 1996; Paugh and Izquierdo 2009; Wiggins and Potter 2003). Cultural comparative studies between different cultural groups constitute one topic of analysis in this tradition. Dinnertime argumentation has, for instance, been discussed in Italian versus US settings (Ochs et al. 1996), Hebrew, American, and American-Hebrew settings (Blum-Kulka 1997), and lastly Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish settings (De Geer et al. 2002). Studies belonging to the discoursepragmatic tradition primarily analyze how language socialization is achieved with respect to, for instance, facework (e.g., local rules for embedding requests) and for ways of doing meta-comments on linguistic and pragmatic issues at dinnertable (Blum-Kulka 1997; De Geer et al. 2002). A central tenet in much work on language socialization at dinnertime concerns social practices of accounting for past actions. When someone asks for or offers an account for dinnertime actions, this often leads to argumentative sequences. In work on mutual apprenticeship at dinnertable, Pontecorvo et al. (2001) explored how parents and children mutually socialize each other through conversational interaction, “collaboratively defining a sense of moral meaning and social order” (p. 340). In her work on account episodes in Italian family dinner conversations, Sterponi (2003) documented how different features of the priming move index different aspects of a situation as problematic, thus projecting different remedial moves as preferred. In a related study, Sterponi (2009) focused on vicarious accounts, provided by parents when children fail to perform a remedial move. The analysis reveals the socializing function of a practice through which parents model preferred behaviors and ways through which the child is expected to reshape questionable conducts. In a work on Italian dinnertime talk, Arcidiacono and Pontecorvo (2009) had a somewhat different focus in that they studied verbal conflicts between parents and children, highlighting the role of argumentation for learning democratic values. Bova and Arcidiacono (2013) have shown that family discussions arise when children challenge parents’ rules or requests. In a study of families with children between 3 and 7 years of age, parents are those who seem to do most of the argumentative work; they assume the burden of the proof, being called upon by their children to provide persuasive arguments that support their actions. In their analyses of dinnertime talk during Italian and Swiss family dinners, Bova and Arcidiacono (2014a, b) have also primarily focused on argumentative strategies at dinnertable, rather than on pragmatic aspects of mealtime interaction. They have shown that the predominant types of argumentative strategies adopted by parents during mealtimes are based on quality assessments and quantity assessments of food that aim at persuading the children to eat their meals (e.g., “it is good

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for you”, “you have not eaten enough”). In their analyses of the argumentative strategies adopted by parents and children during mealtimes, they also documented how similar argumentative strategies, based on quality or quantity, were drawn on by both parties to counter the other’s argument. Children can thus be seen to model their parents and vice versa. Most studies do not foreground variation in argumentation linked to children’s age or life experiences strategies. However, in a work on Swedish family life conversations, Brumark (2008) noticed that adolescents (aged 12–14) make use of complex arguments that require more extended exchanges, while younger siblings (aged 7–10) use simpler arguments that are quickly solved and that concern the immediate context. In their analysis of what they called generational positionings, Aronsson and Gottzén (2011) noted that such positionings are not fixed but are actually adopted in situ as part of the language socialization processes and in response to the interactional events. Parents continuously deploy various rhetorical strategies that are at times taken up by the children in their interaction with their siblings or parents. In their analyses, they show how the same 10-year-old child would deploy rhetorical strategies, typical for parents at one point and the rhetoric of a 5-year-old younger sibling on another occasion. However, their analyses primarily focus on the type of arguments deployed by the parents and the elder sibling, and not so much on the arguments deployed by the youngest child who was the target of dinnertime socialization. In some early work on argumentation among Italian preschoolers, Corsaro and Rizzo (1988) documented ways in which Italian preschoolers would eagerly engage in “discussione”, that is verbal disputes with same age peers. In their analyses of Swedish children’s ways of playing family argumentation, Aronsson and Thorell (1999) have documented ways in which children gleefully engage in aggravated disputes. At large, though, much recent prior work on argumentation (Arcidiacono and Bova 2013; Bova and Arcidiacono 2014a, b) has not involved detailed interactional analyses of toddlers or young children’s argumentative devices. As yet, not much work has documented or problematized the emergent argumentation or what we will call proto-argumentation of toddlers or young children in the preschool age. The study presented in this chapter will fill a gap by focusing both on quite young children and school-age children and on how they successively build social accounts as parts of their interaction with parents (and siblings) in everyday family life. It should be noted that age is here primarily seen as a type of cultural context, not as something essential or given, but more as an indication of cultural experiences (or the lack thereof).

1.2

Data

Methodologically and theoretically, this chapter draws on detailed documentation and sequential analyses of participants’ social interaction, in line with conversation analysis (Sacks et al. 1974).

1 Inter-generational Argumentation: Children’s…

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The study is part of an international project that draws on data collected in Italy and Sweden (cf. Aronsson and Pontecorvo 2002), coordinated with prior work in the US (for details, see Ochs and Kremer-Sadlik 2013). Data include video recordings of dinnertime talk in the homes of 16 Italian and Swedish middle class, dual-earner families, with at least one elder and one younger child (in total 38 children) as part of a video ethnography of family life. All families feature two or more children, with at least one child between 8 and 12 years of age. The present analyses focus on dinnertime account sequences, events that are rich in multiparty conversations, including argumentation between parents and children, and between siblings (Arcidiacono and Pontecorvo 2009; Aronsson and Gottzén 2011). Each family was recorded over the course of a week (before and after school) for approximately a total of up to 50 h per family. Selection of episodes. We have read mealtime transcriptions several times in order to identify episodes that are rich in inter-generational argumentation. The examples that have been chosen reflect the data at large.

1.3

Laments and Plaintive/Pleading Voice as Account Work: Preschool-Age Children’s Proto-Accounts

The youngest children in our data recurrently engaged in what we call protoarguments or proto-accounts: pleading voice (laments), multiple repeats, or want-statements. Elongated vowels (pleading delivery), high pitch and volume and other prosodic phenomena are recurrent features of the youngest children’s requests and accounts. Such conversational devices were recurrently deployed in what we will discuss in terms of the laments (Feld and Fox 1994; Laforest 2002) of the youngest children. In this type of argumentation, the urgency or strength of the participant’s (child’s) needs is highlighted, rather than any excuses, justifications or other reasons that would back up his or her case for being granted target favors or for being pardoned for, for instance, rule breaking at dinnertime. However, what is condoned (or even encouraged) in the case of younger children might not be tolerated in the school-age period or at later periods of childhood. In our data, when a boy of 13 years of age, for instance, complained in a whining voice about “un pezzo di quella:::: (bacca)”, “a piece of that:::: (berry)” that had got stuck between his teeth, was ironically told by his father not to make a fuss over it (“non la facciamo tragica”, “let’s not make a tragedy”; from the Italian Ripe family, not excerpted here). This shows that the participants themselves (the parents) actually orient negatively to lamenting among older children (see also the father’s somewhat ironic uptake to a 10-year-old boy’s lament in extract 5: line 18, below). Conversely, what is not tolerated from an adolescent might be accepted from a younger child, as can be seen in displayed parental concern (extracts 1 and 2).

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F. Pauletto et al.

Below is a case of how a toddler deploys lamenting (pleading voice) in her interaction with her father. Extract 1 Italy, Cali family. Participants: father (P) and child (Elisa, 3 years old)2 1

P:

[°Andiamo di]~là. dai passero[tto.°] ((stretches out arms))

2

Elisa:

[

£Ngv‚u"iq"vjgtg0"e‚oqp"nkvvng"urcttqy0£ 3

ö:]:°:°.

(0.6) ((P starts to lift Elisa))

4

Elisa:

eh:}:[::~:]:::}:[:::::::::]:h:::.

5

P:

[(

6

Elisa:

.h::::: e}i:~e:::::: mh:::. (0.2)

)]

[Non vuoi?] [qw"fqp‚v"ycpv"vqA"

7

m::u::i::a::i::[a::i:::°::°

] ((P lifts Elisa, she

resists)) 8

P:

[vabbè.

guarda

qua,]

facciamo

così.

tu

stai QM0"nqqm"jgtg."ngv‚u"fq"kv"vjku"yc{0"{qw" uvc{ 9

}qui, ti stai- stai qui ti lamenti un po::’,

10

(0.2) ((Elisa pushes back her seat in anger))

jgtg."{qw"uvc{/"{qw"uvc{"jgtg"cpf"ncogpv"c"dkv.

In this episode, P tries to pick up Elisa from her highchair (to leave the table), mitigating his demand through a solidarity oriented we-statement (Brown and Levinson 1987; “andiamo”, “let’s go”) and the endearment term “passerotto” (“little sparrow”; see also Pauletto et al. 2017). Proto-accounts are presented (see also #2), not so much through what is said as from how it is said. Elisa does not protest through verbal arguments, for instance, through invoking tiredness (as the elder children in the data recurrently did). Instead, she merely protests through what is here called laments, in this case through a plaintive voice (eh: :[:: :]::: :[:::::::::]:h:::., line 4). The lament can be seen as a type of proto-argument in that it conveys the strength of her opposition. This is also how the participants themselves treat the children’s implicit accounts. Here, P says that the child can stay in her highchair and, indeed, “lament” (line 9). Such nonverbal proto-arguments are recurrently also deployed as rhetorical embellishments of verbal protests, as in the following case:

2

All names have been anonymized. For all the extracts, the English translation follows the original in Italian or Swedish.

1 Inter-generational Argumentation: Children’s…

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Extract 2 Sweden, Cederberg family. Participants: Mother (M) and child (Emil, 5 years old) 1

Emil:

Jag går ut ~lite. ((stepping down from kitchen chair)) K‚o"iqkpi"qwv c"dkv0

2

M:

n~e:j du kan få tvätta händerna så äter vi hörru, pq