You will acquire the skills that are needed to analyse and evaluate verbal communication in specific contexts. You will learn how to make an analytic overview of argumentative texts, to evaluate these argumentative texts and to make a characterisation of specific genres. The following topics are dealt with: argumentation analysis, the evaluation of argumentation and fallacies, and genre analysis.

You will acquire skills to analyse the rhetorical and persuasive aspects of communication. The course offers an introduction to classical and modern rhetoric and persuasion theory.

In this course the argumentative and stylistic properties of three text genres will be investigated: the medical consultation, the health brochure and the consumer medicine advertisement. The pragma-dialectical argumentation theory is taken as a point of departure for the analysis of health communication.

This course provides a broad overview of the main discursive approaches to the various genres in the political domain, including discourse analytical approaches, argumentative approaches, stylistic approaches, multimodal analysis. Moreover, the course guides you into applying the theoretical insights in an original analysis and evaluation of political communicative practices under the form of a research paper. You will also gain practice in solving a practical problem in political communication.

You will acquire the skills necessary for writing a detailed thesis proposal. The topic, relevant to the field of communication and discourse studies in context, is subsequently researched when writing a Master's Thesis in the second semester.

In this course modern research of argumentation and communication in the legal domain is discussed. The focus is on argumentation in the context of legal decision-making by courts and public officials who must account for their discretionary powers. The emphasis lies on the way in which characteristics of the domain of legal decision-making play a part in the analysis of argumentative communicative practices. The different disciplinary and theoretical approaches that will be discussed originate in legal argumentation theory, legal logic, legal rhetoric, as well as in theories about law, language and literature.

This course is about verbal communication and argumentation in science communication and education. Based on knowledge of the characteristics of academic discourse as expert-to-expert communication, the emphasis is on analyzing argumentation in science communication and education, the structure of texts within various genres and stylistic devices in science communication and education.