Understanding and Promoting Argumentative Practices in Educational Contexts

摘要

Language is so tightly woven into human experience that it is scarcely possible to imagine life without it. As Pinker [1995] pointed out, 'a common language connects the members of a community into an information-sharing network with formidable collective powers. (...) People can work in teams, their efforts coordinated by negotiated agreements. As a result, Homo sapiens is a species (...) that has wrought far-reaching changes in the planet' (p. 16). Throughout history, most human cultural achievements have involved the development of ideas through collective as well as individual efforts. It is through joint engagement that ideas are argued over, contested, borrowed, and shared as our understanding is advanced. According to a so-ciocultural perspective on learning and development, such understanding is a dia-logical phenomenon, and its achievement a fundamentally social and collaborative process [Rojas-Drummond, Albarran, & Littleton, 2008]. In addition, language is arguably the most important milestone in human development. In the words of Hal-liday [1993]: 'When children learn language, they are not simply engaging in one type of learning among many; rather, they are learning the foundations of learning itself (p. 93).