Argumentative style in international adoption dossiers

Drawing on recent developments in Pragma-dialectics, this paper explores argumentation in a corpus of international adoption dossiers (IADs) issued by an Italian adoption agency facilitating adoptions from India. A collection of all the documents required by the native country of the adopted child, the IAD has an argumentative nature, as it aims at persuading Indian authorities to approve adoption. The study reveals that it is characterised by a coordinative argumentation structure and a hybrid argumentative style. This “combination” of detached and engaged styles is prototypical of the communicative activity type at issue, as it is functional to radiating objectivity and commitment alike, with a view to enhancing the acceptability of the standpoint concerning the eligibility of Italian prospective adoptive parents.