Università della Svizzera italiana

Investigating children’s Why-questions : a study comparing argumentative and explanatory function

Bova, Antonio ; Arcidiacono, Francesco

In: Discourse studies, 2013, vol. 15, no. 6, p. 713-734

Questions represent a crucial tool of interaction between parents and children from a very early age. This study aims to investigate which function – argumentative or explanatory – most characterizes Why-questions asked by children to their parents in a natural setting such as mealtimes at home. Why- questions asked by 13 children – eight girls and five boys aged between three and seven...

Università della Svizzera italiana

“You must eat the salad because it is nutritious” : argumentative strategies adopted by parents and children in food-related discussions at mealtimes

Bova, Antonio ; Arcidiacono, Francesco

In: Appetite, 2014, vol. 73, p. 81-94

At mealtimes, the evaluation of the appropriate (or not appropriate) behavior concerning the food is often assumed as a topic of discourse. The aim of this study is to single out the argumentative strategies used by parents with their children and by children with their parents in order to convince the other party to eat or not to eat a certain food. Within a data corpus constituted by 30...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Types of arguments in parents-children discussions : an argumentative analysis

Bova, Antonio ; Arcidiacono, Francesco

In: Rivista di Psicolinguistica Applicata/Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics, 2014, vol. 14, no. 1, p. 43-66

This study aims to single out the argumentative strategies most frequently used by parents to convince their children to accept their rules and prescriptions at mealtimes. The results of thestudy show that parents mostly put forward arguments based on the quality and quantity of food to persuade their childern to eat. Less frequently, the parents put forward other types of arguments such as...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Invoking the authority of feelings as a strategic maneuver in family mealtime conversations

Bova, Antonio ; Arcidiacono, Francesco

In: Journal of community & applied social psychology, 2013, vol. 23, no. 3, p. 206-224

This paper is centred on family conversations and focuses on the conditions that allow a specific strategic maneuver, the invocation of the authority, to be an effective argumentative strategy when used by parents to convince their children to accept rules and prescriptions. Within a corpus of argumentative sequences selected from 30 video-recordings of family mealtime conversations, an...

Università della Svizzera italiana

I want to talk but it is not possible : Dinnertime argumentation in Swiss and Italian families

Arcidiacono, Francesco ; Bova, Antonio

In: US-China education review, 2011, vol. 8, no. 3, p. 355-368

This paper investigates to what extent Swiss and Italian family members engage to resolve differences of opinion during their everyday conversations at home. The goal is to point out the importance of the context in the an alytical reconstruction of argumentation carried out by parents and children at dinnertime and to highlight the similarities and diferences among different strategies. By...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Argumentative strategies for conflict management and resolution in Italian and Swiss families

Arcidiacono, Francesco ; Bova, Antonio

In: Procedia: social and behavioral sciences, 2011, vol. 30, p. 1385–1389

This study aims to analyze how family members engage themselves in resolving differences of opinion during everyday interactions. In particular, we focus on the argumentative strategies used by parents during dinner conversations at home with their children. Within a data corpus based on video-recordings of family dinnertime interactions, two different excerpts of argumentative discussions...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Family conversations : The relevance of context in evaluating argumentation

Arcidiacono, Francesco ; Pontecorvo, Clotilde ; Morasso, Sara Greco

In: Studies in communications sciences, 2009, vol. 9, no. 2, p. 79-92

This paper investigates how to reconstruct and evaluate argumentation in the context of Italian family conversations. By means of a case study, we show how understanding context is essential for the analytical reconstruction of argumentation. Within conversations at dinnertime, we rely on insights from Conversation and Discourse Analysis in order to interpret context-bound communicative and...