Abstract
This paper consists of a detailed analysis of how the participants in a debate build their emotional position during the interaction and
how such a position is strongly related to the conclusion they defend. In this case study, teenage Mexican, students, arguing about access
to drinking water, display extensive discursive work on the emotional tonality given to the issue. Plantin’s (2011) methodological tools are adopted to follow two alternative emotional framings produced by disagreeing students,
starting from a common, highly negative, thymic tonality. Through the analysis of four parameters (distance to the problem;
causality/agentivity; possibility of control and conformity to the norms) we describe how the emotional dimension of
schematization (Grize 1997) is argumentatively relevant. In authentic
discourse, it is impossible to separate emotion from reason. The conclusion section discusses the implications for the design of
argumentation-based pedagogical activities.
Sources of Mistrust: An Experimental Case Study of a Central Asian Water Conflict
