Training program
Argupolis will provide PhD students with a three-part academic orientation:
- first, advanced education in argumentation theory in accordance with the
current state of art in the field;
- second, specification of the structure and dynamics of contexts;- third, a possibility for each PhD student to investigate in depth the specific
context of argumentation he/she is working with.
Structure
The program is spread over three years:
In the first year the courses cover the central body of the study of argumentation and its crucial approach to the basic assumptions of Argumentation Theory and the general approaches to context.
The second year courses are devoted to more specific and typical issues of argumentation theory (dialogue games, argumentative manipulation, verbal instruments for argumentation) and also include a psycho-socialapproach to argumentative situations and knowledge practices. Two crucial subjects are discussed in detail: difference of opinion and conflict, and argumentation in media discourse.
During the third year PhD students will mostly concentrate on their own research; the educational demands are therefore limited to deepening their existing knowledge and insights: the standard version and the extended version Pragma-Dialectics are critically compared with other theoretical approaches to argumentation and two short seminars are offered, devoted to the rhetorical approach to argumentation and to persuasion research.
A summer school (first year) and a winter school (second year) are devoted to the methodological aspects of argumentative analysis. It is most important that the PhD students will learn precisely how to handle data (oral and written texts, records and transcripts of interactions, ethnographic aspects) and become familiar with the methodology of argumentation analysis in the framework of discourse analysis and text analysis.