Pragmatic Strategies of Argumentation in Hidden Figures Movie

Abstract

The term "argument" is defined as "a set of claims that support one another to gain a specific conclusion". (Govier, 2013). Thus, the process of argumentation contains several premises intending to give reasons and opinions to support, or even reject other points. Pragmatic is concerned with different communicative acts and how people can produce, process, and comprehend a communicative act like argumentation. Being concerned with the real meaning of language, the paper offers a pragmatic view that explores the main argument strategies in a given context.

The study focuses on (1) exploring the different pragmatic strategies of argumentation followed by the main characters of the "Hidden Figure" movie, (2) shedding light on different forms of speech Acts as tools of argument, (3) identifying the most powerful speech acts in an argument. To reach the above aims, Van Eemeren and Grootendorst's model of argumentation analysis (1983) is followed, and among the main results concluded were: (1) The claims used in "Hidden Figure" movie are reflections of the model argumentation stages, which verify the truth that such a complex process is following the same patterns to reach the desired aims. (2) the argumentation strategy is highly related to its stage (i.e. the stage of argumentation) as some strategies function only in a specific stage rather than another. (2) different speech acts are workable in more than one stage.