Ancoragem retórica e argumentativa em polêmicas públicas

Abstract

This article examines the role of rhetorical and argumentative anchoring in public controversies through the lens of the Dialogical Model of Argumentation (DMA). Its main aim is to understand how linguistic, semiotic, interactional, and rhetorical elements, although not structured as formal arguments that can be unfolded into premises and conclusion, contribute to orienting, reinforcing, and stabilizing standpoints in polarized debates. Methodologically, the study draws on the notion of anchoring, understood as the way textual and discursive devices stimulate, reinforce, stabilize, orient, and/ or outline a standpoint, and applies it to a qualitative analysis of two excerpts from public controversies: a parliamentary speech opposing the decriminalization of abortion, delivered in 2023, and an interaction from the Flow podcast concerning the legitimacy of Nazi political parties in Brazil, broadcast in 2022. The results show that, in both cases, anchoring devices operate as reinforcers of conflicting standpoints: in the first excerpt, through (de)valuative adjectives and adjectival expressions that construct an opposition between positive and negative values; in the second, through successive and incisive interrogations intended to unsettle the opponent and strengthen the position of the other discussants. The article concludes that discursive anchoring, although subtle and often peripheral, plays a significant role in meaning construction, in shaping positions, and in the dynamics of public controversy, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of rhetorical and argumentative mechanisms in contexts of pronounced dissent.