Research lines

While the rhetorical tradition offers numerous tools for analyzing, evaluating, and producing persuasive discourse, a significant knowledge gap remains in understanding the impact of persuasive messages on diverse individuals and the neural mechanisms involved. The research line on Cognitive Neuroscience of Persuasion seeks to bridge this gap by testing the cognitive adequacy of rhetorical insights regarding the design of persuasive discourse. In particular, it employs cutting-edge neuroimaging methods (MRI and EEG), alongside behavioral measures such as self-paced reading and eye tracking.

The research line on Annotating Argumentation in the Wild focuses on identifying argumentative moves in persuasive communication and on creating annotated datasets for argumentation research. These datasets are subjected to various types of linguistic analysis and modeling to increase our understanding of how people interpret persuasive communication – whether generated by humans or by LLMs – focusing on statement types, argumentation structures, and different types of arguments and other rhetorical strategies.

Practical research

The results of the empirical research lines are combined with theoretical insights about argument detection and mapping, argument type identification, and argumentation assessment to develop a reliable and transparent procedure for Argument-Checking, an extension of fact-checking. This procedure enables the interpretation and evaluation of argumentative texts in various communicative domains and also facilitates a more objective measurement of people’s competence in understanding, assessing, and producing arguments.

Theoretical research

The research line on Adpositional Rhetoric (AdRhet) aims to provide a robust formalization of the linguistic and pragmatic aspects of persuasive discourse within a constructivist representation framework that employs so-called ‘adpositional trees’. The results can be used as input for empirical research and for implementation in argumentation technology.

Multimodal Rhetoric investigates how language, images, and sound are combined to persuade and shape perception in multimodal communication. Drawing on insights from rhetoric, argumentation theory, and semiotics, it analyzes persuasive strategies in political campaigns, advertising, and digital art. The goal is to develop theories, methods, and practical resources that support scholars, educators, and professionals in analyzing and evaluating multimodal argumentation and rhetoric.

Research into the Philosophy of Argument is aimed at providing historically and empirically informed accounts of the various theoretical concepts relevant to the study of argumentation (e.g. ‘argumentation structure’, ‘argument type’, ‘stock issue’, and ‘fallacy’) and at exploring modifications and extensions of traditional definitions of argument (e.g. to metaphor, narration, visual and multimodal argumentation, and polylogue).