The Impact of Dialogic Teaching on English Language Learners’ Speaking and Thinking Skills

Argument requires justification of its claims
Two necessary conditions that must be met before something is called an argument. A set of 
two or more assertions and the attempt to resolve the conflict through an appeal to reason. But a 
good argument demands more than meeting these two formal requirements. For the argument to 
be effective, an arguer is obligated to clarify and support the reasons presented. 
• 
Argument is both a process and a product
Argument can be viewed as a process in which two or more parties seek the best solution to a 
question or problem. Argument can also be viewed as a product, each product being any person’s 
contribution to the conversation at a given moment. 
• 
Argument combines truth seeking and persuasion
 Internal structure of arguments 
 
Typically an argument has an internal structure, comprising the following: 
1. a set of assumptions or premises 
2. a method of reasoning or deduction and 
3. a conclusion or point. 

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Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 8. Number 4. December 2017 
The impact of Dialogic Teaching on English Language Elhassan &
Adam
Arab World English Journal
www.awej.org
ISSN: 2229-9327
55 
Kinds of argumentation 
Conversational argumentation
The study of naturally-occurring conversation arose from the field of sociolinguistics. It is 
usually called conversational analysis. Inspired by ethno methodology, it was developed in the late 
1960s and early 1970s principally by the sociologist Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail 
Jefferson. Because of them conversational argumentation has now become an established force in 
sociology, anthropology, linguistics, speech-communication and psychology. Recently CA 
techniques of sequential analysis have been employed by phoneticians to explore the fine phonetic 
details of speech. Empirical studies and theoretical formulations by Sally Jackson and Scott Jacobs, 
and several generations of their students, have described argumentation as a form of managing 
conversational disagreement within communication contexts and systems that naturally prefer 
agreement.