oa Multimodale argumentatie: bruggen slaan tussen argumentatieleer en multimodale analyse

Multimodal argumentation: Building bridges between argumentation theory and multimodal analysis

Since the end of the 90s there has been an increasing interest in the analysis of images and in their interplay with written language. Even though images, especially when used in advertisements, have already been studied within rhetorical approaches to communication and visual studies, there still lacks a systematic account of their contribution to the way standpoints are put forward and argumentation is advanced. At the same time, within the field of discourse analysis interest has been expressed in the analysis of visual and other non-verbal elements of communication. Nevertheless, no special attention has been paid within this field to those communicative situations where the support of a standpoint with arguments and the acceptability of the argumentation are at stake. In order to be able to analyse the various aspects of multimodal documents on their merits and to account for their argumentative relevance it is necessary to build bridges between argumentation theory and multimodal analysis. This paper discusses critically the current state of affairs regarding the analysis of multimodal documents from an argumentation studies perspective and argues for a systematic study of the interplay of the verbal and the visual modes within the framework of Pragma-dialectics. Three print advertisements are analysed in order to illustrate the merits of such an approach to the argumentative analysis of multimodal documents.