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[Narrative Argumentation in Political Letters to the Editor].

Juliane Schröter
Published in: Zeitschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik (2021)
How and why are narratives used for argumentation in contemporary political letters to the editor? In order to find answers to this question, I examine about 50 letters to the editor from Swiss and German daily newspapers, all of which are related to COVID-19. In all letters, the writer presents an argument by telling a story. It turns out that the story usually serves as a premise for an argument from example in an argumentation with an evaluative standpoint. For the writers, unfolding such a premise as a narrative has the advantage that they can successively convey an evaluation together with the exemplary event. A socio-cultural benefit of such narrative arguments from example might be that they can easily connect the social micro-level with the societal macro-level in political debates.
Keyphrases
  • coronavirus disease
  • sars cov
  • physical activity
  • mental health