Language intensity has been investigated within several disciplines, such as linguistics, stylistics and social psychology, and from several approaches. As a result, a wide range of intensifying elements and effects have been identified. In this chapter, we demonstrate on the basis of a qualitative corpus-analytical study that two dimensions play a decisive role in the discrimination of intensified language: contextuality and semantic richness. Contextuality reflects the degree to which the intensifying meaning of an element depends on its context. Semantic richness describes the amount of meaningful information that an intensifying element contains on top of its intensification function. This chapter is a starting point for further research concerning the characteristics of language intensity. Our insights contribute to established approaches in corpus-analytical and stylistic research.

Language intensity has been investigated within several disciplines, such as linguistics, stylistics and social psychology, and from several approaches. As a result, a wide range of intensifying elements and effects have been identified. In this chapter, we demonstrate on the basis of a qualitative corpus-analytical study that two dimensions play a decisive role in the discrimination of intensified language: contextuality and semantic richness. Contextuality reflects the degree to which the intensifying meaning of an element depends on its context. Semantic richness describes the amount of meaningful information that an intensifying element contains on top of its intensification function. This chapter is a starting point for further research concerning the characteristics of language intensity. Our insights contribute to established approaches in corpus-analytical and stylistic research.

Can argumentation schemes play a part in the critical processing of argumentation by lay people? In a qualitative study, participants were invited to come up with strong and weak arguments for a given claim and were subsequently interviewed for why they thought the strong argument was stronger than the weak one. Next, they were presented with a list of arguments and asked to rank these arguments from strongest to weakest, upon which they were asked to motivate their judgments in an interview. In order to assess whether lay people apply argument scheme specific criteria when performing these tasks, five different argumentation schemes were included in this study: argumentation from authority, from example, from analogy, from cause to effect, and from consequences. Laypeople's use of criteria for argument quality was inferred from interview protocols. The results revealed that participants combined general criteria from informal logic (such as relevance and acceptability) and scheme-specific criteria (such as expertise for argumentation from authority, similarity for argumentation from analogy, effectiveness for argumentation from consequences). The results supported the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical argument scheme rule in a strong sense and provided a more fine-grained view of central processing in the Elaboration Likelihood Model.

Argumentative vocabulary in Dutch national examinations of reading proficiency. Recent revisions For years, in Dutch general secondary education (havo and vwo) argumentation skills are part of the national examinations in reading proficiency. Recently, the Dutch Board of Examinations (College voor Toetsen en Examens – CvTE) asked an advisory committee to evaluate the argumentative vocabulary used in the yearly exams in relation to the current state of the art in argumentation research. The committee advised a light revision of the specification of educational goals and formulated a list of argumentational concepts and definitions that can be used in the national examinations. In this article the authors – committee members – account for the proposals of the committee. The room for change was defined by the examination programme of the Dutch minister of education and by the executive role of the CvTE. Moreover, the state of the art in argumentation research had to be set alongside the usability of concepts in educational practice and effective testing of reading skills.

Powerful language: A literature review on language intensity in four research fields In recent decades, language intensity, intensification and intensifiers are studied in different research fields: in descriptive linguistics, evaluative literature, social psychology and text analytical discourse studies. However, questions raise about the interpretations researchers in those fields have regarding language intensity: their concepts are diverse. First, it is questionable what kind of utterances are strengthened through language intensity: evaluative or descriptive utterances. Secondly, there are differences between the studies whether language intensity only contain strengthening or also weakening elements. Thirdly, the amount in which the meaning of an utterance changes through language intensity is debatable. Lastly, language intensity studies differ in the linguistic elements that are considered as intensifying elements. In this literature review, the research traditions are compared: how is language intensification studied in various fields, where do they contribute and where are the bottlenecks? This article concludes with a proposal for a unified approach to language intensity, intensification and intensifiers as a stylistic phenomenon, in order to carry out more systematic research on this topic in the future.

In 2017 vinden enkele aanpassingen plaats in de manier waarop argumentatieve vaardigheden worden bevraagd in de centrale examens Nederlands havo en vwo. Wat is er veranderd en waarom?

Do argumentation schemes play a part in the critical processing of argumentation by laymen? In a qualitative study participants had to formulate strong and weak arguments for a given claim and to rank a list of given arguments in quality. In interviews they were asked to motivate their opinions on the quality of the arguments. The study dealt with five argumentation schemes: argumentation from authority, from example, from analogy, from cause to effect and from consequences. Laymen criteria for argument quality were inferred from interview protocols. Results show a combination of general criteria from informal logic (such as relevance, acceptability, comprehensibility) and scheme-specific criteria (such as expertise for argumentation from authority, comparability for argumentation from analogy, effectiveness for argumentation from consequences). The results support the conventional validity of such criteria and clarify the continuum from peripheral to central processing in the Elaboration Likelihood Model: more and cognitively more demanding heuristics are used in central processing than in peripheral processing.

High-quality arguments have strong and lasting persuasive effects, suggesting that people can distinguish high- from low-quality arguments. However, we know little of what norms people employ to make that distinction. Some studies have shown that, in evaluating arguments from consequences, people are more sensitive to differences with respect to the desirability of these consequences than to differences in the likelihood that these consequences will occur. This raises the question of whether people lack the criteria to distinguish high-quality from low-quality arguments in support of such claims. In an experiment, 196 participants without any training in argument theory rated their acceptance of 30 claims about the likelihood that a certain outcome would result from a certain action. These claims were supported by an argument from authority, or from cause to effect, or from example. Arguments were systematically manipulated to violate nine specific criteria. For seven out of the nine criteria violation decreased acceptance of the claim supported. These findings show that people can use argument type specific criteria to distinguish high- from low-quality arguments.

Authors of written texts may mark the use of verbal irony in a variety of ways. One possibility for doing so is the use of so-called co-textual markers of irony (i.e., support strategies that open up a non-serious frame). This study aims to classify and categorize these co-textual irony markers. A content analysis of 2,042 co-textual utterances of irony across four text genres (advertisements, newspaper columns, book and film reviews, and letters to the editor) shows that three categories of support strategies could be identified: other ironic utterances, tropes and mood markers. The use of irony support strategies was positively-related to the genre of newspaper columns: columns used more ironic utterances and tropes as irony support strategies than the other genres in the corpus.

In their position paper, Veale, Feyaerts & Forceville (this volume) argue that creativity can be found in duality. They analyze different examples of creative duality in the domains of word, image and sound. This paper further expands on their contribution by looking at the creative ways in which two of these domains – the verbal and the visual – can be combined to create meaning. As a case in point, this chapter focuses on the concept of verbal irony. Verbal irony may be particularly suited for this analysis, because an ironist always has two meanings to his or her disposal: the literal and the intended evaluation of the ironic remark. In fact, some of the examples discussed by Veale et al. (this volume) in the light of creative duality such as the gestalt-switching in the image of the hare and the duck (see Figure 1 in Veale et al. [this volume]) have also been discussed in the context of irony (see Hutcheon [1994]). Therefore, this chapter presents an exploratory corpus study that aims to investigate how creative duality can be found in images related to ironic remarks and how images can serve to make an ironic utterance more creative. Some scholars refer to this kind of image as a visual marker of verbal irony (see Attardo, Eisterhold, Hay & Poggi [2003]). In order to investigate how these visual irony markers may work, one approach could be to investigate the rich literature on verbal markers of irony (e.g., Attardo [2000a], Kreuz [1996], Seto [1998]). These authors have identified a wide array of verbal irony markers ranging from tropes such as hyperbole (e.g., Kreuz & Roberts [1995]) and rhetorical questions (e.g., Muecke [1978]) to topographic signals such as the use of quotation marks (e.g., Attardo [2001]) or emoticons (e.g., Kreuz [1996]). A simple solution to the question which visual markers can be identified would be to transplant these verbal markers directly to the visual modality. Some scholars would agree with this notion and argue that nothing special separates visual from verbal communication. McQuarrie & Mick (2003) for instance claim that:

According to Gibbs and Colston, one of the biggest challenges for irony research is the uncovering of the various ways in which irony is used in discourse. This article takes up a genre-based approach to deal with this research challenge. In a content analysis of ironic utterances from six written genres (commercial and noncommercial advertisements, columns, cartoons, letters to the editor, book and film reviews), ironic utterances are compared on the usage of irony factors and irony markers. Results indicate that every genre in the corpus differs from the general distribution for at least one irony factor and one category of irony markers. Taken together, the clustering of irony factors and markers in specific genres is a first step toward identifying the various ways in which verbal irony is used differently across various genres.

Taalgebruikers kunnen hun evaluatieve uitingen kracht bij zetten met stilistische middelen. Ze maken bijvoorbeeld gebruik van intensiverende prefixen (gloednieuw), of intensiverende beeldspraak (opmars in plaats van toename). In een corpusanalytisch onderzoek is nagegaan hoe recensies en hoofdredactionele commentaren verschillen in het gebruik van dergelijke intensiveerders. In commentaren wordt significant meer gebruik gemaakt van bijwoorden van graad en versteende beeldspraak. In recensies treffen we meer intensiverende voorvoegsels, bijvoeglijke naamwoorden en originele beeldspraak aan. Maar merken taalgebruikers dergelijke stilistische versterkingen wel op? In twee experimenten kregen proefpersonen tekstfragmenten met en zonder intensiveringen voorgelegd. Taalgebruikers bleken de geïntensiveerde evaluaties inderdaad krachtiger en subjectiever te vinden dan de niet geïntensiveerde uitingen. Voor een betrouwbare identificatie van intensiverende elementen is nog geen in alle opzichten bevredigende oplossing gevonden. In de discussie gaan we in op de vraag hoe met de (on)betrouwbaarheid van interpretatieve data in een corpusanalyse kan worden omgegaan.

Argument quality has consistently been shown to have strong and lasting persuasive effects. The question is what criteria people use to distinguish strong from weak arguments and how these criteria relate to the ones proposed in normative argumentation theory. In an experiment 235 participants without training in argumentation theory rated the acceptance of 30 claims about the desirability of a consequence that were supported by either an argument from analogy, from authority, or from consequences. The supporting arguments were systematically manipulated to violate argument type specific criteria. Participants proved sensitive to the violation of most, but not all, argument type specific criteria. From a normative perspective these findings suggest that people act in a fairly adequate way. These findings also enable a more precise description of what people may do when critically appraising arguments, which has important implications for the use of argument quality as a methodological tool in persuasion research.

According to Gibbs and Colston, one of the biggest challenges for irony research is the uncovering of the various ways in which irony is used in discourse. This article takes up a genre-based approach to deal with this research challenge. In a content analysis of ironic utterances from six written genres (commercial and noncommercial advertisements, columns, cartoons, letters to the editor, book and film reviews), ironic utterances are compared on the usage of irony factors and irony markers. Results indicate that every genre in the corpus differs from the general distribution for at least one irony factor and one category of irony markers. Taken together, the clustering of irony factors and markers in specific genres is a first step toward identifying the various ways in which verbal irony is used differently across various genres.

This article introduces the Verbal Irony Procedure (VIP), a first systematic method for identifying irony in natural discourse. The first section discusses previous operationalizations of irony and demonstrates that these are not explicit about which criteria were used to separate irony from non-irony. The second section argues why irony can be defined as an "utterance with a literal evaluation that is implicitly contrary to its intended evaluation." This section also explains why ironic utterances can be placed on an evaluation scale. In the third section, clauses are proposed as a good unit of analysis when looking at irony in natural discourse. The different steps of the VIP are then introduced in the fourth section and subsequently applied in a sample analysis of a natural text in the fifth section. The sixth section discusses a reliability analysis of the VIP protocol. The article ends with an outlook on how future research on verbal irony might benefit from applying the VIP.

This paper reports on two experiments which demonstrate that textual characteristics of irony (type of ironic evaluation and irony markers - e.g., hyperbole, quotation marks) can influence comprehension, perceived complexity and attitudes towards the utterance and text. Results of experiment 1 show that explicitly evaluative irony is perceived as less complex and is more appreciated than implicitly evaluative irony. In experiment 2, irony markers were found to increase comprehension, reduce perceived complexity and make attitudes towards the utterance more positive. Both experiments also demonstrate that the influence of irony on attitudes depends on comprehension and complexity: if irony is understood or perceived as relatively easy, it is better liked than when it is not understood or perceived as relatively difficult. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.