Counter-argumentation as a discursive strategy

Abstract

This paper is based on the assumption that the mass media are not objective, but rather that they construct a simbolyc representation of the social actors that appear in the news. From this point of view, the Spanish media’s representation of the immigrants who were involved in the “sucesos de El Ejido” (Spain, February 2000) is analyzed here, as well as the discursive function of counter-argumentation and of the marker "pero” from the perspective of Jean-Claude Anscombre and Oswald Ducrot's Theory of Argumentation in Language.