Critical narrative analysis: the interplay of critical discourse and narrative analyses

Why do individuals find their work meaningful and what is the role of worthwhile contributions in this experience? We undertake an analysis of accounts related by individuals working as nurses, creative artists and lawyers in which they explain why they find their work meaningful. Drawing on the traditions of critical discourse and narrative analysis, and informed by French pragmatic sociology, we move beyond a focus on what is said to consider how accounts are structured in explanations of meaningfulness. We find meaningfulness to be discursively constituted in the judgement that work makes a worthwhile contribution to others or wider society. We add theoretically to the literature on meaningful work, first, by revealing worthwhile contributions to be a complex, three-fold evaluation comprising the value attached by the individual to their contribution, validation from others that aligns with the individual’s own evaluation concerning the worth of the contribution and the individual’s self-efficacy belief that they are able to make the contribution. Second, we build bridges between hitherto disconnected branches of the meaningful work literature grounded in positive psychology on the one hand and moral worth on the other by showing how judgements of worth are fundamental to the experience of meaningfulness.

In this article, we explore and problematize the coming out discourses of Ricky Martin and Tiziano Ferro’s through a creative (critical) discourse analysis. We first contextualize the historicity of Ricky Martin and Tiziano Ferro’s artistic careers and argue that their coming out process is a privileged laboratory to understand the ways strategies and tactics of discourses are deployed. Second, through a Critical Discourse Analysis and collaborative writing inquiry approach, we present a creative fictional dialogue to showcase our analysis. This can be called creative (critical) discourse analysis. Third, we further reflect and theorize about these coming out discourses using Queer Theory, Governability, and the concept of Glory and the Media as privileged spaces for power. This will lead us to question the centered subject or a solid identity, the manifestations of coming out discourses, and the role of Glory and the Media in the socialization process.

Critical Policy Discourse Analysis bridges the literature on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and critical policy analysis to provide a practical guide on how to combine these major approaches to critical social science. The volume gives a clear introduction to concepts and analytical procedures for critical policy discourse analysis. Utilising ten international case studies, the authors explain and critically reflect upon the methods and theories that they have used to successfully integrate CDA with critical policy studies across a diverse range of policy issues. Case studies are used to explore issues in economics, health, education, crisis management, the environment, language and energy policy. Analysing these through discursive methodological approaches in the traditions of CDA, social semiotics and discourse theory, this book connects this discursive methodology systematically to the field of critical policy studies. This is an essential read for researchers wishing to practically combine methods of CDA with critical policy studies. It provides key insights for politics scholars looking to gain a more in-depth understanding of the impact and analysis of discourse.

Accessible yet theoretically rich, this landmark text introduces key concepts and issues in critical discourse analysis and situates these within the field of educational research. The book invites readers to consider the theories and methods of three major traditions in critical discourse studies � discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis -- through the empirical work of leading scholars in the field.

This paper contributes to the development of a critical realist approach to discourse analysis by combining aspects of ‘critical discourse analysis’ (CDA) and ‘the morphogenetic/morphostatic approach’ (M/M). Unlike poststructuralist discourse theory, CDA insists on the maintenance of two distinctions: (i) between discourse and other aspects of social reality; (ii) between structure and agency. However, CDA lacks clarity on these distinctions. M/M, on the other hand, offers a coherent modelling of these distinctions that can underpin the application of CDA. The paper begins by introducing CDA, M/M and the existing literature on critical realist discourse analysis. It then establishes the M/M model of social change within CDA’s existing social theory by focusing on ‘analytical dualism’ and ‘social practice’. Finally, the paper locates the concept of discourse within M/M’s model of social change by theorizing discourse as one of four objective structures of meaning.

Language and cinema make use of distinctive tools to interpret and reflect external reality. While signs in language consist of signifiers and signified(s), in cinema they are fiction, sound, image, and most importantly, discourses within the screenplay. A discourse is a unit of communication value that, for the most part, includes the social and production conditions of language beyond utterances. Examinations of discourse can be done from a linguistic perspective that engages grammar, sentence structures, and voice, or from a non-linguistic perspective. Critical discourse analysis approaches its object of study from a broad perspective. It aims to critically examine texts and speeches on subjects such as racism, sexism, colonialism, and other forms of social inequality. Critical feminist discourse analysis focuses on the complex structures of hidden power relations and the ideologies that support gender regulations in discourse, though it is separate from critical discourse analysis in various ways. In this study, the film Marriage Story, written and directed by Noah Baumbach, undergoes critical feminist discourse analysis. By constructing the character Nicole, the female protagonist who attempts to exist in a masculine public sphere and, in the process, becomes a liberated individual who makes a series of decisions in line with her desires and needs and self-expression, Baumbach criticizes the dominant ideology of his own cinematic making.

Ruth Wodak & Paul Chilton (eds.), A new agenda in (critical) discourse analysis: Theory, methodology and interdisciplinarity. Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society, and Culture, 13. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xi, 322. Hb $138.00. The title of this book implicitly raises a number of important questions about the relationships among discourse analysis (DA), critical discourse analysis (CDA), and interdisciplinarity: Is CDA one approach to analyzing text and talk, or is it (by implication of the ambiguous parenthetical reference in the book's title) somehow merging with (an increasingly more critical) DA? To what extent does or should (C)DA embrace interdisciplinary approaches to treating language in use? Finally (and perhaps most compelling of all), what is this new agenda, what is wrong with the old agenda, and why is a new agenda needed at this time? Overall, the book does a fair to good job of addressing these questions.

ABSTRACTThis article argues for an increased emphasis on resistance in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), thereby joining calls for more Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), a branch of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) focused on progressive—rather than oppressive—discourse that has been slowly gaining traction in international circles but remains largely unknown within U.S. communication studies. While CDS brings oppression and resistance together in theory, in practice it is overwhelmingly focused on deconstructing oppression, not reconstructing resistance. In spite of calls for more generative analyses focused on progressive discourses, PDA has not yet been established as a necessary complement to CDA. Thus, CDS’s potential as a lens for understanding resistance is underdeveloped. In an effort to push CDS in a more progressive direction, this article considers the role of design in CDS and outlines the aims, contributions, and challenges of PDA as a tool for emancipatory CDS research. A critical action implicative discourse analysis of neurodiversity discourse is provided as a model of PDA that may be useful for scholars interested in analyzing progressive discourse as well as disability rights activists interested in challenging cognitive ableism.

This research aims to investigate the relationship between critical reading abilities and critical discourse analysis (CDA) competencies among future 21st century educators, emphasizing the critical necessity for these educators to possess such skills in today's demanding educational landscape. A sample of 70 prospective teachers was analyzed to determine the interconnection between their abilities in critical reading abilities and CDA, with an exploration into how one skill may influence the other. Additionally, the study examines the role of cognitive style—specifically, field-independent and field-dependent thinking—as a moderating factor in this relationship. Findings indicate a significant positive impact of CDA capabilities on critical reading abilities, suggesting that proficiency in analyzing discourse critically enhances one's ability to read with a critical eye. Furthermore, the study reveals no significant difference in CDA and critical reading abilities between participants categorized as field-independent thinkers versus those identified as field-dependent thinkers. These outcomes highlight the need for further research to explore additional factors that may affect the development of critical reading and discourse analysis skills. The study concludes with a call for educational strategies that integrate both critical reading and CDA competencies, considering the varied cognitive styles of learners.

This study aims to analyse power, dominance, racial discrimination, and power exercise that is narratively established through a subtle network of metaphors in a fiction work, The Kite Runner. The Kite Runner exposes the socioeconomic conditions in the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan, revealing the differences between power manipulation and the domestic performance of powerful social groups. The work also explores how religious and status dichotomies circumvent the progress of minority groups and align their physical features with their receding power and financial features. An adopted model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) indicates power, economic, and racial dichotomies in the book while revealing the shades of metaphors through conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) in a post-colonial text. Dogmatic ideographs are perpetuated in every public sphere through language and established gradually through unprovoking tools of metaphors. The metaphors are uncovered through CMT, providing a helpful understanding of different conceptual domains. Rhetorically, CDA helped reveal the racial discrimination, human rights violations, and hatred against minorities embedded in the selected metaphors. This investigation is very significant in connection with the current scenario of cross-cultural studies, as it mainly depicts the prevailing social trends regarding two different settings. The study may benefit intelligentsia interested in post-colonial and decolonial discourse and diaspora literature. Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, Metaphor, Power Expansion, Racial Discrimination Agbo, I. I., Kadiri, G. C., & Ijem, B. U. (2018). Critical metaphor analysis of political discourse in Nigeria. English Language Teaching, 11(5), 95–105. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v11n5p95 Burke, K. (2017). A rhetoric of motives. In Routledge eBooks (pp. 154–164). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315080925-15 Chouliaraki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in late modernity: Rethinking critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh University Press. Fairclough, N. (2000). Discourse, social theory and social research: The case of welfare reform. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4(2), 163–195. Fairclough, N. (2012). Critical discourse analysis. International Advances in Engineering and Technology, 7, 452–487. Foucault, M. (1976). The history of sexuality (Vol. 1). https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/endsandbeginnings/foucaultrepressiveen278.pdf Foucault, M., & Sheridan, A. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA21964742 Gill, S. (1998). European governance and new constitutionalism: Economic and monetary union and alternatives to disciplinary neoliberalism in Europe. New Political Economy, 3(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563469808406330 Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Hosseini, K. (2003). The kite runner. New York, NY: Riverhead Books. Jawaid, A., Batool, M., Arshad, W., Kaur, P., & ul Haq, M. I. (2024). English language pronunciation challenges faced by tertiary students. Contemporary Journal of Social Science Review, 2(04), 2104-2111. https://contemporaryjournal.com/index.php/14/article/view/361 Jawaid, A. (2014). Benchmarking in TESOL: A Study of the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013. English Language Teaching, 7(8), 23-38. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v7n8p23 Jensen, D. F. N. (2006, April). Metaphors as a bridge to understanding educational and social contexts. International Institute for Qualitative Methodology. https://sites.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/5_1/HTML/jensen.htm Kövecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed., pp. 202–251). Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. Reddy, M. (1979). The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (pp. 284–324). Cambridge University Press. Talib, N., & Fitzgerald, R. (2016). Micro–meso–macro movements: A multi-level critical discourse analysis framework to examine metaphors and the value of truth in policy texts. Critical Discourse Studies, 13(5), 531–547. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2016.1182932 Van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News analysis: Case studies of international and national news in the press. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 249–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926593004002006 Van Dijk, T. A. (2001). Critical discourse analysis. Discourse and Society, 4(2), 249–283. Van Dijk, T. A. (2005). Discourse and racism in Spain and Latin America. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Van Dijk, T. A. (2009). Critical discourse studies: A sociocognitive approach. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (2nd ed., pp. 62–86). London: Sage Publications. Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts and developments. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 1–13). London: Sage Publications. Wodak, R. (2007). Pragmatics and discourse analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Gay men's health typically relies on traditional forms of qualitative analysis, such as thematic analysis, and would benefit from a diversity of analytic approaches. Such diversity offers public health researchers a breadth of tools to address different kinds of research questions and, thus, substantiate different types of social phenomenon relevant to the health and wellbeing of gay men. In this article, I compare and contrast three qualitative analytic approaches: thematic, critical discourse, and conversation analysis. I demonstrate and distinguish their key analytic assumptions by applying each approach to a single data excerpt taken from a public health interview conducted for a broader study on gay men's health. I engage in a discussion of each approach in relation to three themes: its utility for gay men's health, its approach to dilemmas of voice, and its capacity for reflexivity. I advocate that qualitative researchers should capitalise on the full range of qualitative analytic approaches to achieve the goals of gay men's health. However, I specifically encourage qualitative researchers to engage with conversation analysis, not only because of its capacity to resolve dilemmas of voice and to achieve reflexivity, but also for its ability to capture forms of social life hitherto undocumented through thematic and critical discourse analysis.

The main subject of this study is a detailed literature review analysis of critical discourse researches made in the Turkish language. As a unique discipline, critical discourse analysis has played an important research tool role in social sciences. Critical discourse analysis, which emerged in the late 1980s, can be considered a relatively new research method in our country. This discipline has developed around the schools of three different academics. One of the leading figures in this field is Teun A. van Dijk (b. 1943). Van Dijk, the founder of the Socio-cognitive Approach, is one of the important names cited in the analysis of political and media discourses. Another name is Norman Fairclough (b.1941). Fairclough's 3-Dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis method also constitutes an important space in discourse studies. Another significant figure in the field of critical discourse analysis is Ruth Wodak (b. 1950). Wodak, the founder of the Discourse Historical approach, first developed this method to analyze the biased anti-Semitic language and imagery in Waldheim's electoral programs in the Austrian presidential election that was held in 1986. Since then, the methodology developed by Wodak has been useful for discourse analysis of cases with an important historical dimension. This study aims to explain the approaches of the discourse experts mentioned above and to compile critical discourse analysis and corpus analysis studies conducted in political and media texts in Turkish academia. As a result of this study, which was carried out within the scope of the qualitative research method, important insights into the basic features, possibilities, and limitations of critical discourse analysis research in Turkish academia have been obtained. Some of the insights obtained can be summarized as follows: It has been determined that the critical discourse analysis studies available in the Council of Higher Education online database include a total number of 54 master’s and doctoral theses published since 2003. Among these theses, the number of the theses prepared in Turkish is 23. As a result of the Google Scholar search, it has been found that the number of Turkish studies conducted since 2003 is more than 90. The most cited research among these studies is the article “Discourse Analysis” published in 2008. The main limitation of most of the critical discourse analysis studies made in the Turkish language is about the usage of the translations of the works authored by the above-mentioned experts who developed this discipline, and this usage limits the number of resources concerning the method because not every major work has been translated into Turkish. In the light of the findings, the ways to improve the discipline in Turkish academia shows the importance of this study.

This study applies a critical multimodal discourse analysis to three television commercials: 1) Neutrogena ‘Healthy Skin Liquid Makeup’, 2) Colgate ‘Advanced Total whitening toothpaste’ and 3) Danone ‘Activia probiotic yogurt’. In order to gain further insight into how advertising discourses can shape body image ideologies, this study sets out to investigate how television commercials construct a relationship between health and beauty. This research includes analysis of both the visual and the verbal modes, drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, and Inter-mode relations. The findings are discussed in terms o f the theories of healthism discourse and aestheticization of everyday life. In addition, Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, lifestyle, taste, capital, and field will be used to discuss how the health-beauty consolidation is recursively produced and reproduced by society and its members. The results of this study suggest that there is a colonization o f the advertising non-health related products under healthism discourse, and this type of advertising is cooccurring with ideologies of the body beautiful resulting in an unprecedented consolidation between the concepts o f health and beauty. These findings underscore the need for media literacy and hence the importance o f practicing and also teaching discourse analysis approaches such as SFL, CDA, and MDA that are designed to expose ideological underpinnings.

In this groundbreaking, cross-disciplinary book, Rebecca Rogers explores the complexity of family literacy practices through an in-depth case study of one family, the attendant issues of power and identity, and contemporary social debates about the connections between literacy and society. The study focuses on June Treader and her daughter Vicky, urban African Americans labeled as "low income" and "low literate." Using participant-observation, ethnographic interviewing, photography, document collection, and discourse analysis, Rogers describes and explains the complexities of identity, power, and discursive practices that June and Vicky engage with in their daily life as they proficiently, critically, and strategically negotiate language and literacy in their home and community. She explores why, despite their proficiencies, neither June or Vicky sees themselves as literate, and how this and other contradictions prevent them from transforming their literate capital into social profit. This study contributes in multiple ways to extending both theoretically and empirically existing research on literacy, identity, and power: * Critical discourse analysis. The analytic technique of critical discourse analysis is brought into the area of family literacy. The detailed explanation, interpretation, and demonstration of critical discourse analysis will be extremely helpful for novices learning to use this technique. This is a timely book, for there are few ethnographic studies exploring the usefulness and limits of critical discourse analysis. * Combines critical discourse analysis and ethnography. This new synthesis, which is thoroughly illustrated, offers an explanatory framework for the stronghold of institutional discursive power. Using critical discourse analysis as a methodological tool in order to build critical language awareness in classrooms and schools, educators working toward a critical social democracy may be better armed to recognize sources of inequity. * Researcher reflexivity. Unlike most critical discourse analyses, throughout the book the researcher and analyst is clearly visible and complicated into the role of power and language. This practice allows clearer analysis of the ethical, moral, and theoretical implications in conducting ethnographic research concerned with issues of power. * A critical perspective on family literacy. Many discussions of family literacy do not acknowledge the raced, classed, and gendered nature of interacting with texts that constitutes a family's literacy practices. This book makes clear how the power relationships that are acquired as children and adults interact with literacy in the many domains of a family's literacy lives. A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family Literacy Practices: Power In and Out of Print will interest researchers and practitioners in the fields of qualitative methodology, discourse analysis, critical discourse studies, literacy education, and adult literacy, and is highly relevant as a text for courses in these areas.

This book is divided into two parts, "Argumentation in Critical Discourse Analysis" and "Questions and Doubts about Visual Argumantation", each part containing two chapters. In the first chapter, "Topoi in Critical Discourse Analysis", I am concerned with how topoi are used (and misused) in the Discourse-Historical Approach. The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), pioneered by Ruth Wodak (see Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl, Liebhart 1999; Wodak, van Dijk 2000; Wodak, Chilton 2005; Wodak, Meyer 2006; Wodak 2009), is one of the major branches of critical discourse analysis (CDA). In its own (programmatic) view, it embraces at least three interconnected aspects (Wodak 2006: 65): 1. 'Text or discourse immanent critique' aims at discovering internal or discourse-internal structures. 2. The 'socio-diagnostic critique' is concerned with the demystifying exposure of the possibly persuasive or 'manipulative' character of discursive practices. 3. Prognostic critique contributes to the transformation and improvement of communication. CDA, in Wodak's view, is not concerned with evaluating what is 'right' or 'wrong'. CDA ... should try to make choices at each point in the research itself, and should make these choices transparent.1 It should also justify theoretically why certain interpretations of discursive events seem more valid than others. One of the methodical ways for critical discourse analysts to minimize the risk of being biased is to follow the principle of triangulation. Thus, one of the most salient distinguishing features of the DHA is its endeavour to work with different approaches, multi-methodically and on the basis of a variety of empirical data as well as background information. (Wodak ibid.) One of the approaches DHA is using in its principle of triangulation is argumentation theory, more specifically the theory of topoi. In the first chapter, I am concerned with the following questions: how and in what way are topoi and, consequentially, argumentation theory, used in DHA as one of the most influential schools of CDA? Other approaches (e.g., Fairclough (1995, 2000, 2003) or van Leeuwen (2004, 2008; van Leeuwen, Kress 2006)) do not use topoi at all. Does such a use actually minimize the risk of being biased, and, consequentially, does such a use of topoi in fact implement the principle of triangulation? Judging from the works we analysed in the first chapter, there are no rules or criteria how to use topoi or how to detect topoi in the discourse/text; the only methodological precept seems to be, »anything goes«! If so, why does CDA need triangulation? And what happened to the principle stipulating that CDA »should try to make choices at each point in the research itself, and should make these choices transparent? « We have seen identical and similar bundles of topoi for different purposes or occasions; we have seen different bundles of topoi for identical and similar purposes or occasions; we have seen different bundles of topoi for different occasion; and we have seen pretty exotic bundles of topoi for pretty particular and singular purposes. Which leads us to a key question: can anything be or become a topos within DHA? And, consequentially, what actually, i.e., historically, is a topos? If a topos is supposed to connect an argument with a conclusion, as all the relevant DHA publications claim, one would expect that at least a minimal reconstruction would follow, namely, what is the argument in the quoted fragment? What is the conclusion in the quoted fragment? How is the detected topos connecting the two, and what is the argumentative analysis of the quoted fragment? Unfortunately, all these elements are missing; the definition and the quoted fragment are all that there is of the supposed argumentative analysis. And this is the basic pattern of functioning for most of the DHA works. At the beginning, there would be a list of topoi and a short description foreach of them: first, a conditional paraphrase of a particular topos would be given, followed by a short discourse fragment (usually from the media) illustrating this conditional paraphrase (in Discourse and Discrimination, pp. 75-80), but without any explicit reconstruction of possible arguments, conclusions, or topoi connecting the two in the chosen fragment. After this short "theoretical" introduction, different topoi would just be referred to by names throughout the book, as if everything has already been explained in these few introductory pages. It is quite surprising that none of the quoted DHA works even mention the origins of topoi, their extensive treatment in many works and the main authors of these works, namely Aristotle and Cicero. Even the definition, borrowed from Kienpointner (mostly on a copy-paste basis), does not stem from their work either: it is a hybrid product, with strong input from Stephen Toulmin's work The Uses of Argument, published in 1958. All this is even more surprising because today it is almost a commonplace that for Aristotle a topos is a place to look for arguments (which is true), a heading or department where a number of rhetoric arguments can be easily found (which is true as well), and that those arguments are ready for use – which is a rather big misunderstanding. According to Aristotle, topoi are supposed to be of two kinds: general or common topoi, appropriate for use everywhere and anywhere, regardless of situation, and specific topoi, in their applicability limited mostly to the three genres of oratory (judicial, deliberative, and epideictic). With the Romans, topoi became loci, and Cicero literally defines them as “the home of all proofs” (De or. 2.166.2), “pigeonholes in which arguments are stored” (Part. Or. 5.7-10), or simply “storehouses of arguments” (Part. Or. 109.5-6). Also, their number was reduced from 300 in Topics or 29 in Rhetoric to up to 19 (depending on how we count them). Although Cicero's list correlates pretty much, though not completely, with Aristotle's list from the Rhetoric B 23, there is a difference in use: Cicero's list is considered to be a list of concepts that may trigger an associative process rather than a collection of implicit rules and precepts reducible to rules, as the topoi in Aristotle's Topics are. In other words, Cicero's loci mostly function as subject matter indicators and loci communes. Which brings us a bit closer to how topoi might be used in DHA. In the works analysed in the first chapter, the authors never construct or reconstruct arguments from the discourse fragments they analyse – despite the fact that they are repeatedly defining topoi as warrants connecting arguments with conclusions; they just hint at them with short glosses. And since there is no reconstruction of arguments from concrete discourse fragments under analysis, hinting at certain topoi, referring to them or simply just mentioning them, can only serve the purpose of »putting the audience in a favourable frame of mind. « »Favourable frame of mind« in our case – the use of topoi in DHA – would mean directing a reader's attention to a »commonly known or discussed« topic, without explicitly phrasing or reconstructing possible arguments and conclusions. Thus, the reader can never really know what exactly the author had in mind and what exactly he/she wanted to say (in terms of (possible) arguments and (possible) conclusions). In Traité de l'argumentation – La nouvelle rhétorique, published in 1958 by Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, topoi are characterised by their extreme generality, which makes them usable in every situation. It is the degeneration of rhetoric and the lack of interest for the study of places that has led to these unexpected consequences where »oratory developments«, as Perelman ironically calls them, against fortune, sensuality, laziness, etc., which school exercises were repeating ad nauseam, became qualified as commonplaces (loci, topoi), despite their extremely particular character. By commonplace- es, Perelman claims, we more and more understand what Giambattista Vico called »oratory places«, in order to distinguish them from the places treated in Aristotle's Topics. Nowadays, commonplaces are characterised by banality which does not exclude extreme specificity and particularity. These places are nothing more than Aristotelian commonplaces applied to particular subjects, concludes Perelman. And this is exactly what seems to be happening to the DHA approach to topoi as well. Even more, the works quoted in the first part of the articlegive the impression that DHA is not using the Aristotelian or Ciceronian topoi, but the so-called »literary topoi«, conceptualized by Ernst Robert Curtius in his Europaeische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter (1990: 62- 105, English translation). What is a literary topos? In a nutshell, oral histories passed down from pre-historic societies contain literary aspects, characters, or settings which appear again and again in stories from ancient civilisations, religious texts, art, and even more modern stories. These recurrent and repetitive motifs or leitmotifs would be then labelled literary topoi. The same year that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca published their New Rhetoric, Stephen Toulmin published his Uses of Argument, probably the most detailed study of how topoi work. Actually, he does not use the terms topos or topoi, but the somewhat judicial term “warrant”. The reason for that seems obvious: he is trying to cover different “fields of argument”, and not all fields of argument, according to him, use topoi as their argumentative principles or bases of their argumentation. According to Toulmin (1958/1995: 94-107), if we have an utterance of the form, “If D then C” – where D stands for data or evidence, and C for claim or conclusion – such a warrant would act as a bridge and authorize the step from D to C. But warrant may have a limited applicability, so Toulmin introduces qualifiers Q, indicating the strength conferr