Abstract
In contemporary educational contexts there is considerable variation in how argumentation works and what forms and styles it takes. Influencing factors include the educational purpose and task, the level of education, and the discipline or curriculum subject in which it occurs. This paper offers a theoretical framework and a set of multimodal analytical tools which can provide a rich and systematic account of such variation. Using naturalistic data from three different educational sites I illustrate how such a framework reveals the diverse ways in which students use language and other modes of meaning making as they engage in processes of argumentation. In particular, I consider how new technologies have caused shifts in the distribution of meaning across different semiotic modes (such as visual images, space, colour and graphics) and how this impacts upon both argumentation process and product. The educational implications of such changes are also considered.
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Notes
ESRC ref: RES-000-22-1453. A report of the study is available at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk. This details all aspects of the investigation. To find out more about the project and ongoing work visit: http://arguinginhistory.open.ac.uk/index.cfm.
Discussion forums are sometimes referred to as message boards, text based electronic conferencing or cmc. Common commercial packages which provide these forums are Blackboard, WebCT, First Class, and Moodle. In asynchronous conferences participants can post messages which may be responded to within minutes, hours or days—sometimes even weeks.
The use of abbreviations (e.g. lol for laugh out loud) and other forms of shorthand (such as coz instead of because, dis instead of this, etc.).
From reading previous messages they refers to the Nazis.
For reasons of space it is not possible to include the detail of the linguistic analysis.
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Coffin, C. Contemporary Educational Argumentation: A Multimodal Perspective. Argumentation 23, 513–530 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-009-9161-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-009-9161-z