Building on our diverse research traditions in the study of reasoning, language and communication, the Polish School of Argumentation integrates various disciplines and institutions across Poland in which scholars are dedicated to understanding the phenomenon of the force of argument. Our primary goal is to craft a methodological programme and establish organisational infrastructure: this is the first key step in facilitating and fostering our research movement, which joins people with a common research focus, complementary skills and an enthusiasm to work (...) together. This statement—the Manifesto—lays the foundations for the research programme of the Polish School of Argumentation. (shrink)

The aim of this article was to explore identity struggles related to the experience of living with medically unexplained symptoms in illness narratives of patients with MUS. These patients pose therapeutic and communication challenges as their symptoms do not have an obvious underlying diagnosis. Previous studies have shown that their stories can best be described as ‘chaos narratives’, lacking a chronological development of symptoms or ‘legitimacy narratives’, through which patients seek to legitimize their invisible symptoms. The study draws on 21 (...) interviews with MUS patients. The examples were selected from two contrasting cases in order to show how the patients accomplish their identity struggles through distinctive discursive tools, such as metaphors, modality, personal pronouns, evaluative devices, as well as characteristic interactional structure, navigating around the three identity dilemmas: continuity and change, self and other, and agent or undergoer. (shrink)

The present study explores discursive constructions of us- and them-groups within the context of the debates on the placement of the US anti-ballistic missile defence system in Central and Eastern Europe. The study is based on the data collected by the authors in the Polish and Russian press. Using the framework that is informed by Critical Discourse Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, the authors define strategies and specific linguistic means used to represent ‘us’ and ‘them’ and provide a picture of (...) chronological transformations that these representations undergo in the investigated newspapers. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to explore the identity construction by students with invisible disabilities as disclosed in medical consultations at a university health center. In particular, I work on the assumption that analysing the discursive processes through which students with invisible disabilities construct, negotiate and resist their roles and identities may contribute to a better understanding of living and studying with an invisible condition. Taking a discourse analytic approach, I consider identity as a dynamic and negotiable process that (...) takes place in specific interactional occasions. The findings have shown that these students sometimes construct contested identities as patients, students, or experts during medical consultations, responding to conflicting expectations of others and their own. (shrink)