Language and argumentation

The Professional Master's programme Discourse and Argumentation Studies aims to provide students with a solid theoretical and methodological foundation for understanding the way language is used for informative and argumentative purposes. The programme presents an overview of recent descriptive and normative research in language, and covers a broad range of topics, including conversational analysis, style, classical and modern rhetoric, informal logic, fallacies, and juridical and conversational argument.

Upon completion of the programme, students will have acquired an adequate knowledge of and insight into the main normative and descriptive theoretical approaches to the study of argumentation. This includes: pragma-dialectics and the main theoretical approaches to the study of discourse, including speech act theory and conversation analysis. In addition, students gain the skills necessary for:

• analysing and evaluating argumentative discourse;
• for reading, analysing, evaluating and conducting independent research;
• and for producing both written and oral reports on research findings.

The programme also offers students the possibility to put theory into practice in a specially selected internship, in which communicative and argumentative skills play a central role.

Discourse and Argumentation Studies at the University of Amsterdam

The programme is unique in the way it combines courses in discourse analysis and argumentation theory. It was conceived and is taught by those scholars who applied insights from these two fields in order to develop and extend the internationally renowned approach to the study of argumentative discourse, known as 'pragma-dialectics'. In the context of the programme, students are in direct contact with these scholars.

Degree certificate

Discourse and Argumentation Studies is an accredited degree programme of Communication and Information Studies.  After successful completion of this programme, you will receive a legally accredited Master’s degree in Communication and Information Studies and the title Master of Arts (MA).