Argumentative coalition and echoing in legal discursive practices

Abstract

This study describes modes of construction of the argumentative coalition between magistrates, in an argumentative deliberation. From the transcript of a brief trial regarding a moral damage (pretium doloris), we show how, in the interaction and argumentation field, the construction of consent between collaborators is built as discursive legal practice, in an argumentative interaction. We verify that the classic ‘spirit communion’ advocated by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (2008), burst throughout the described deliberation. This study progress methodologically, through studies of argumentative interaction (Plantin, 1990, 2008, 1996), conversation analysis, (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2011; Jakubinskij, 2015; Moeschler, 1985), besides the support of and being supported by researches from authors who explain the argumentation in the legal field (Posner, 2008; Reis, 2010) and the dynamic of trials in the moral damage field. The analysis undertaken shows that in a context of judicial deliberation, the coalition between lawyers is translated through what we call ‘echoing’ or the construction of co-oriented points of view in favor of a thesis. The short case study presented here evidences, after all, how the agreement is built in the elaboration of a judgment, in the second degree of jurisdiction, in argumentative interaction with multiple interactants.