Argumentative and interactional dimensions of Textual Linguistics in digital environments

Abstract

This review presents some fundamental concepts discussed in the live session entitled Argumentation and interaction in Textual Linguistics. From interfaces between Textual Linguistics and other scientific approaches, aspects, such as text, genre, interaction, and argumentative modalities, were discussed, in the convergence to the new modes of argumentation in digital contexts. Supported by authors, such as Adam (2019), Amossy (2017), Paveau (2015), and Charaudeau (2015), the participants of this roundtable managed to associate the modes of argumentation and interaction in digital contexts to criteria as text plan and communicative contract. Thus, the discussion undertaken by the professors during the roundtable involved argumentative, discursive, and interactional aspects, emphasizing the importance of working with an interdisciplinarity focused on the current studies in Textual Linguistics.

Text

The live sessions promoted by Abralin - Brazilian Association of Linguistics - brings resistance and comfort to Linguistics researchers. On the one hand, resistance by using virtual resources as a means of propagating scientific contributions at a time when science, especially the Humanities, is being threatened. On the other hand, comfort by using those same resources, which are used to reduce distances in several aspects, to bring together a number of researchers and others interested in different areas of linguistic studies and contribute to the academic training of these people, in a committed way.

Text studies have relevance in the academy, in teaching and in social practices. Therefore, an update of academic research on the fundamental aspects of the area, such as its basic concepts, its analysis criteria and the possible interfaces with other areas of knowledge, is shown directly in social practices and vice versa. Thus, the different modes of interaction, such as those that arise with the increase in the frequency of internet use, make new modes of arguing also arise.

The roundtable Argumentation and interaction in Textual Linguistics[1] (hereafter TL), moderated by Profa. Dra. Mariza Angélica Paiva Brito (UNILAB/FUNCAP), received as guests three linguists from the field, who arranged themselves in the following order of presentation, producing an organized and complementary environment to the eyes and ears that followed them, through the slides and their important speeches.

Opening the roundtable, we reflect on the interdisciplinary speech by Profa. Dr. Mônica Magalhães Cavalcante (UFC/CNPq); then, we follow the focused and practical presentation of Profa. Dr. Ana Lúcia Tinoco Cabral (USP/Profletras; IP-PUC-SP); and, lastly, we watched the innovative exposition of Profa. Dr. Maria Eduarda Giering (UNISINOS/FAPERGS). Below, some of the discussions undertaken by the teachers during their presentations are highlighted.

To this day TL owns to Marcuschi and Koch studies carried out by this field. The beginning of the live session filled us with emotions, as its date would be both Marcuschi's birthday and Koch's anniversary of death, as Professor Mônica Cavalcante well remembered. The first contributions of this field already tapped on the analysis criteria investigated today, such as coherence, reference, argumentation, among others. However, scientific studies in specific areas must keep pace with the practices related to it. For this reason, the modes of interaction, of argumentation and of investigating each of these changes were also modified.

This way, without ever forgetting the commitment to act in a coherent way with the investigated objectives, i.e., analyzing texts in the light of their criteria, TL nowadays uses interfaces with other branches of Linguistics to encompass the text-discourse relationship which emerges in more diverse interactions. For this, other theoretical approaches converge, such as: Bakhtin's Dialogical Discourse Theory, Amossy’s Argumentation Theory of Discourse[2], and Charaudeau's Semiolinguistic Theory.

The concept of text (see more in Cavalcante et al, 2019)[4], the main object of analysis of TL, comes close to the concept of utterance (as presented by Brait, 2016)[3], as a unique and concrete event, which is in constant dialogue with other texts, always situated in a socio-historical context. These were some of the characteristics of the concept of text contemplated in the speech of Professor Mônica.

Situated in this context, the subjects interact and assume social roles which vary according to genre, to the argumentative orientation they want to support, and, always, in relation to the other. Thus, in the communicative circuit, it is essential to understand the social roles that are played in the relationship between subjects within the interactional and argumentative framework, in which both take on various discursive stances in society and seek to develop strategies for influencing the other. These influence strategies affect not only the direct interlocutor, but also indirect participants: the third.

According to Amossy, the third is the one who does not have the right to a voice, but in polemic interactions, for example, it is on him that the most diverse persuasion strategies fall. In this way, the argumentative dimension of the text consists of these strategies negotiated between speaker and interlocutor (and third) and can be evidenced in different ways, such as through argumentative modalities, referential processes, intertextual appeals, among other resources.

These resources that the subjects use will depend on the different ways of interacting, of acting in the world, and of relating to the other. For this reason, interacting and arguing are intrinsically interconnected human activities.

The ways of interacting and arguing have been modified by the countless possibilities that digital resources offer, as Professor Ana Lúcia Tinoco Cabral pointed out. Her analyzes, focused on genres that have adapted to digital environments, focused on aspects related to the change in the text plan, a concept presented by Adam (2019)[5], which becomes more complex with all these possibilities when we enter this technological world. The changes in the text plan are evident, above all, as an important resource that the speaker uses to be able to incorporate the new forms of interaction and argumentation.

The choice of textual arrangements made by this speaker does not guarantee, however, that his intentions will be achieved. There are always possible effects, projected by the speaker in a dialogue with the other - although presupposed - but never guaranteed, as highlighted by Charaudeau (2015)[6].

The dual aspect in the process of reading and interacting in digital environments has been an important discussion in studies of production and understanding of texts in these environments. If, on the one hand, the text plan and the ways of interacting become more complex, on the other, the hypertextual indications simplify the reader's understanding of meanings, as they make complementary information on the topic accessible, in an infinite network on the Internet.

The advent of the use of the Internet and these modes of interaction made it easier for the dialogue between the actants of the communicative circuit, who can talk to each other, in comment sections, for example, with the author of the post, etc., at the same time that are inserted in several possible interactions in a network of overlapping interactions.

More focused on interaction than on argumentation, Professor Maria Eduarda Giering reflected on the ways in which the defining criteria of textuality can be affected (or necessarily modified) due to digital resources and environments, making use of texts present in the work Faire Texte (Adam and Phillipe, 2015)[7].

The presence of the concept of native digital texts, i. e., texts that appear and develop in digital environments and present characteristics such as plurisemioticity and de-linearization, made the professor’s presentation instigating, since the innovative character of such a concept leads us to reflect on the hypertextuality always present in these interactions and on the need to change the analysis criteria to be able to encompass such interactive processes. Therefore, the professor cited Paveau (2015)[8] when addressing the technological resources that underlie these network interactions.

These interactions are united in a technodiscursive domain, within which these language and interactional practices are inserted, whether they are available online or offline. This technodiscursive domain makes it possible to create genres completely dependent on this digital medium. For this reason, research aimed at these native digital texts requires not only the analyst's knowledge and critical eye, but also presupposes his insertion in the environment in which the texts emerge.

Interactions in digital environments change not only the way of interacting and arguing in digital environments. They bring up new categories related to writing and reading, as is the case with the concept of writer-reader (écrilecteur). The texts relate statements potentially related to each other and, through a large network that is built from hypertextuality, it is up to the writer-reader to decide, for example, the path of reading that is most enjoyable to him. He, therefore, operates choices, almost always simply clickable, to build the network of meanings in the text. In this way, the reader becomes even more active, since he has even more independence to incorporate complementary content to the reading. The exercise of writing and reading, therefore, gains an even more collaborative character with the various possibilities that the digital context offers.

Thus, the elements defining textuality itself need to adjust to the new ways of making text, which generate native digital texts and bring, along with them, the immense complexity in analyzing them in the light of the criteria currently applied.

There are many innovations that the change in social practices bring to text studies: they increase the possibilities of interaction through new technologies, lead subjects to seek new ways to try to influence the other (even - or especially - the third, always silenced), diversify the ways of reading, writing, among other activities.

The current challenge TL researchers face is to redefine categories to encompass these diverse interactions that arise with new technologies. For this reason, the discussion undertaken at the Argumentation and Interaction in Textual Linguistics roundtable is an important tool for researchers of language studies in general, as it presents in a succinct, in-depth way the most recently investigated relationships in the field.