Argumentation in hypertext : a case study of NGOs’ campaigning

This paper investigates variation in argumentative discourse as a consequence of the passage from traditional linear texts to hypertext, focusing in particular on NGOs’ campaigning on the web. The analysis, which combines linguistic and argumentation theory perspectives (drawing for the latter on the pragmadialectical approach), addresses issues connected with the loss of linearity determined by hypertexts, with special regard for its impact on textual coherence, and the consequential loss of the writer’s control on the order of arguments (dispositio).