What’s in a name

Abstract

We survey the disciplinary status and the research trends of argumentation studies. Our investigation combines the methods of a literature review and environmental scan. The latter consists in analysis of the linguistic features of journal titles, which we approach as a type of metacommunication. The results of our environmental scan suggest that the authors contributing to argumentation research envision it as a well-integrated field with a complex system of relations among the communities, agendas, methods, and venues involved in it. Yet we also found that the field is often seen as divided along the lines of binary oppositions between theory and its applications, as well as between theoretical and empirical research. We found that the field is increasingly turning to empirical, applied, and professional research, while the status of scholarly research is declining. Our analysis suggests that argumentation studies is developing a more sophisticated and tractable theory and methodology