Reconstructing argumentation patterns in German newspaper articles on multidrug-resistant pathogens: a multi-measure keyword approach

This study explores the reconstruction of argumentative patterns through keywords in a newspaper corpus on multi-resistant organisms. Starting from manually identified frequent argumentation patterns based on a previous study by (Author, 2017), keywords are assigned to the argument they are assumed to point to. Keywords are calculated through three different measures (log likelihood, log ratio, adjusted log ratio) which cover different frequency ranges. This approach allows us to explore argumentation on varying levels of semantic granularity, showing that keywords of different frequency (and therefore different specificity) contribute to exploring discourse strategies.While an unambiguous category assignment is hardly achievable because frequent keywords appear in a wide range of contexts, keywords assigned to argumentation patterns do mostly occur in arguments. Most of our pre-determined argumentation patterns could be reconstructed using keyword methodology. Moreover, we identify two patterns absent from our original annotation scheme. Moreover, the different measures uncover words of noticeably different frequencies and thus argumentative specificity. Therefore, we deem keywords useful for exploring argumentative discourse.