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Article published In: Multimodal Argumentation: Special issue of the Journal of Argumentation in Context 13:2 (2024)
Edited by Hartmut Stöckl and Assimakis Tseronis
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 13:2] 2024
► pp. 260–291

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Detecting generic patterns in multimodal argumentation

A corpus-based study of environmental protection print-ads

 | University of Salzburg
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

This article was made Open Access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license through payment of an APC by or on behalf of the author.

Published online: 10 September 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00030.sto
Abstract
The present study devises and puts into practice an annotation scheme for interrogating the patterns of multimodal argumentation found in environmental protection print-advertisements collected between 2018 and 2022. 134 ads featuring the sub-topics climate change, deforestation, pollution, and preservation have been subjected to annotations for various features on four levels: genre/text, image, multimodal argument and multimodal coherence/rhetoric. By contrast with previous, predominantly case-based studies in argumentation, the approach presented here aims not to reconstruct single instances of multimodal argumentation but to identify recurrent patterns along with their typical features. The results show distinct regularities in the way arguments for environmental protection are constructed from large images and short text.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Review of theory
    • 2.1Visual and multimodal argument(ation)
    • 2.2Propositionality and non-redundancy of images
    • 2.3Rhetorical functions of images in argumentation
    • 2.4Approaches to argument reconstruction
    • 2.5Multimodal argumentation in advertisements
  • 3.Material, methods and aims
    • 3.1Material
    • 3.2Method and aims
    • 3.3Sample analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Text – structure and style
      • A.Generic stages
      • B.Directives
    • 4.2Image semantics
      • C.Visual grammar
      • D.Visual affect
    • 4.3Multimodal argumentation
      • E.Types of claims
      • F.Argumentation schemes
      • G.Discourse structure
    • 4.4Multimodal rhetoric
      • H.Multimodal rhetorical figures
      • I.Modes of visual meaning
  • 5.Summary and conclusions
  • References
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Heshmati, Bita & Ewa Modrzejewska
2024. How we argue about the use of images. Journal of Argumentation in Context 13:2 ► pp. 203 ff. DOI logo

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