Communication and Information Studies: Argumentation, Rhetoric and Communication (research MA)

The Research Master's in Argumentation, Rhetoric, and Communication focuses on the study of argumentation and rhetoric in different communicative contexts such as health, law, politics and science.

This programme prepares students for conducting academic research by stimulating critical reflection on theories and methods for the analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse in different domains. It reflects on the main characteristics of the research of the Argumentation and Rhetoric Group Amsterdam, as well as the main developments in the field of communication and discourse studies. Crucial concepts from rhetoric and argumentation theory used in argumentative discourse analysis, evaluation, and production are examined and discussed in a systematic fashion. Insights from the philosophy of language and pragmatics, relevance theory, discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, and metaphor theory provide a framework in this process. Students also become familiar with the methods and techniques of qualitative and quantitative empirical research in the programme discipline. This in turn enables them to carry out thorough and theoretically justified analyses, case studies, corpus research, and other types of investigations of real-life discussions and texts.