Three degrees to question and face up to someone else’s discourse: a polyphonic-argumentative approach

Abstract

In this paper the author analyzes a set of controversial statements
extracted from the political discourse of the Argentine former
president Nestor Kirchner. In particular, she is interested in examining,
from a polyphonic-argumentative perspective, meanings
triggered by the use of interrogative exclamatory expression
“how (not)” regarding the critical representation of someone
else’s discourse. She distinguishes, from the viewpoint of the
semantic blocks theory, three uses of statements headed by “how
(not)” to be placed on a continuum from least to greatest questioning
of someone else’s discourse: a rhetorical use, an oppositional
one and, finally, a refutation use. These are three different
mechanisms of controversial representation of the adversaries’
discourse and, consequently, three different speaker’s attitudes.