Argumentation and degrees of institutionalisation of persuasive genres

Abstract

This paper, based on the research in Theory of Text from the perspective of Linguistics of Genres, aims at studying how the interaction of contextual factors and aspects of textual organization – two sources that intrinsically compose genre – can influence the argumentation of certain persuasive genres. Considering that the editorials and the political posters constitute persuasive textual genres with a different level of institutionalization, this article will try to demonstrate, from a descending methodology of analysis, the correlation between contextual coercions imposed by genre and the selection of resources associated with stylistic, organization and extended enunciation gearings. This study is part of my Doctor’s degree thesis and will focus on the analysis of samples of texts that circulated in the era of the 2002 Elections in Portugal: one political poster and one editorial. From these data, we will proceed to a generalization, looking at a larger corpora collected for the thesis. From the analysis of certain elements that make up the gearings of the persuasive genres, we establish a continuum that correlates the functional persuasive aspect and the degree of institutionalization in the genres studied. More institutionalized genres such as the editorials approach a lesser persuasive and more demonstrative pole. On the other hand, less instituted genres such as the party billboards rank at a more persuasive and lesser demonstrative pole.

Key words: argumentation, textual genres, textual gearings, language activity.