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

Communicative functions of Why-questions in parent-child interaction at home

Bova, Antonio

In: Proceedings of the 15th European Conference of Developmental Psychology, 2012, p. 301-306

The present investigation has examined 3 to 6 year old children’s “why” questions and their communicative functions in family conversations. Children’s why questions included in thirty videorecordings of dinnertime interactions, held by Italian and Swiss families, were analyzed. In this investigation, the presence of two fundamental functions of children’s why questions,...

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

Functions of “why” questions asked by children in family conversations

Bova, Antonio

In: Procedia: social and behavioral sciences, 2011, vol. 30, p. 776-782

This study focuses on children's speech and, more particularly, analyzes the functions of children's “why” questions asked during family conversations at home. Within a data corpus composed of video recordings of family dinnertime interactions, sequences in which children ask “why” questions during family conversations are presented and qualitatively analyzed. The results show the...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Implicitness functions in family argumentation

Bova, Antonio

In: Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, 2011, p. 149-161

Università della Svizzera italiana

Interpretation of psychological concepts in Wittgenstein

Bova, Antonio

In: Language and World : proceedings of the 32nd International Wittgenstein Symposium, 2009, p. 64-65

This paper focuses on Wittgenstein's notion of psychological concepts. According to the Austrian philosopher, it is only the Grammar to provide the means in order to properly interpret the psychological concepts, and the description of internals mental states is reduced to the description of the use of words. Psychological facts and phenomena are thus replaced with the notion of psychological...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Argumenter en classe de sciences

Bova, Antonio

In: Studies in communication sciences, 2009, vol. 9, no. 2, p. 297-300