This volume focuses on the evolution of genres in specialized communication under the pressure of technological innovations and the profound social changes triggered by globalization in the contemporary world, in a context where rapid and extensive changes in communicative practices, patterns and technologies have deeply affected the generic configuration of professional and disciplinary domains.
These developments call for a reconsideration of the repertoires of conventions traditionally identified in each specific genre as well as for a reassessment of the analytical tools used to...

This book explores the construction of agreement in the argumentative process, aiming to investigate how the activation of shared knowledge, values and beliefs leads to the creation of a common ground between the speaker and the audience in the pursuit of persuasion. In the first part of the book, the authors examine agreement from a historical and theoretical perspective, setting in relation major ancient and contemporary approaches to argumentation, with special regard for the notions of ethos, objects of agreement, starting points and topoi, all with a focus on their deployment in...