Descriptive and analytical qualitative research of argumentative discourse

In this chapter, two types of qualitative research are distinguished that are both vital to the study of argumentation. Using a qualitative method, researchers can conduct descriptive or analytical studies of argumentative discourse. In descriptive studies, they aim to understand how argumentative discourse is conducted in actual practice, while in analytic research they aim at reconstructing argumentative discourse from a theoretical perspective. In studying argumentative reality descriptively, researchers can opt for a practice-based ‘emic’ approach or for a theory-based ‘etic’ approach. In analytical qualitative research, real-life argumentative discourse is reconstructed from a theoretical perspective. Such research is therefore always etic. In the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation descriptive and analytic studies been integrated in a systematic research program – and where this is useful, they are followed by closely connected (experimental) quantitative research.