Argumentation and Discourse: From Topic-Based Reasoning to Its Discursive Realization in a Genre of Political Communication

This paper explores the relationship between Argumentation Theory (AT) and Discourse Analysis DA), aiming to show how their interaction contributes to a better insight into the meanings and functions of texts. Namely, AT may provide discourse analysts with valuable tools functional to the aims of textual analysis. Once argu-mentative categories have helped shed light onto the structures of argumentation, DA can play a complementary role, by filling them with meanings that are necessarily intertwined with situation and context. At the same time, the constitutive nature of discourse, one of the pillars of DA, allows also for a reshaping of reality through the linguistic representation of both facts and arguments, an aspect that in turn can enrich the analysis of argumentation proper and its effects on society.