AIDA: Attitude and Identity in Argumentation is a 4-year research project funded by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) based at the University of Lodz. The aims of the study are: first, to define, describe, and characterise the functions of argument; second, to investigate the role of identity in argumentation on the basis of an examination of several corpora of texts featuring identity arguments; and third, to explore the possibilities for integration of the insights gained on the identity related functions of argumentation into the procedural tool for argument evaluation, the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA). Read more here!
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News
ECA - European Conference on Argumentation
The AIDA team were heavily involved in the organisation of Europe's top argumentation conference at the Warsaw University of Technology in September, 2025.
We also delivered papers on experts and identity, and argument functions and linguistic features.
Rhetoric in Society
Martin Hinton was joined in Zagreb by Agnieszka Bryła-Cruz to present our work on identity in religious discourse.
PhilArg Conference
The AIDA team organised the PhilArg conference sessions at PhiLang, 16-18 May 2025. The theme of the conference was The Individual Arguer: Goals, Functions and Effects of Arguments. We hope to prepare a special issue of the journal Argumentation featuring work presented at the event.
We presented our work on argument functions and expert arguments.
AIDA, Aristotle, AI, and Athens
PI, Martin Hinton, delivered a talk on the ethos of artificial arguers at the Academy of Athens in April 2025.
Winter Research Visits
Team members visited the ARG-Tech Laboratory at the University of Dundee (December 2024) and the Chair of Cognition, Communication, and Argumentation at the University of Amsterdam (January 2025).
AIDA at ARGAGE
The whole team were in Switzerland to present our work at the Argage conference in Fribourg, Switzerland on Tuesday 25th June.
The PowerPoint presentation is here. The corpus of arguments used in the study can be downloaded here: Argage 80 Corpus © 2024 by Martin Hinton, Miriam Kobierski, Weronika Olkowska is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .
AIDA at OSSA
Martin Hinton presented the project team's work on Functions of Argument at the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation Conference, OSSA 13, in Windsor, Canada, on Friday 24th May.
The full paper can be downloaded here.
The conference PowerPoint presentation is here.
Research & Publications
The team is currently working on the following themes:
Argument Functions
Hinton, M., Kobierski, M., Olkowksa, W., & Sroka, A. (2024). Functions of Argument: Changing minds about what?. Proceedings of OSSA 13. University of Windsor. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14776/18897
Building the AIDA Corpus
Identity Argument in Religious Discourse
Arguer Identities and Ethics
Kulik, M., Hinton, M. & Budzynska, K. (2025). Charity as Just Deserts. Topoi. doi.org/10.1007/s11245-025-10295-0
Project team
The team currently has five members, four based at the Institute of English Studies, Faculty of Philology, at the University of Lodz, and one from UMCS in Lublin.
Principal Investigator: Martin Hinton
Dr hab. Martin Hinton is head of the Department of Linguistics and Communication. Martin is primarily an Argumentation scholar with an interest in Rhetoric, Philosophy of Language, and Philosophy of Linguistics. He created the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA) which is described in detail in his book Evaluating the Language of Argument. He organises the biennial Philosophy of Argumentation (PhilArg) meetings at the Philosophy of Language and Linguistics (PhiLang) conference as well as the related series of online PhiLang Seminars.
Co-investigator: Agnieszka Bryła-Cruz (UMCS)
Dr Bryła-Cruz has worked on socio-linguistic factors in the perception of speakers as well as rhetorical features of media presentation and public speeches. She joins the team to help conduct a study on the expression of indivduality in argumentative religious discourse. Dr Bryła-Cruz visited Lodz for a research stay in December 2024 and will be working with the team throughout 2025.
Researcher: Miriam Kobierski
Miriam Kobierski has master’s degrees in English Philology and Philosophy from the University of Lodz, where she is now a student at the Doctoral School of Humanities. Her research interests revolve around general linguistics and she is particularly interested in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Miriam has been awarded a Preludiam grant from the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) entitled: The variation of linguistic and rhetorical features across different functions of argument.
Research Assistant: Agnieszka Sroka
Agnieszka Sroka, BA is studying for her Master's degree in English Linguistics. She is currently working on corpus building and annotation of argument types.
Former Research Assistant: Weronika Olkowska
Weronika Olkowska, MA is currently studying at the University of Lodz Doctoral School of Humanities, and working as a researcher on the Prima project. Her research interests include multimodal argumentation and social media. Weronika continues to work on topics within the Aida project.
Project partners
The following scholars and research teams are sharing their expertise with us:
The New Ethos Laboratory - Warsaw University of Technology
Katarzyna Budzyńska
Marcin Koszowy
Ewelina Gajewska
Language and Cognition in Argumentation - University of Amsterdam
Jean Wagemans
Contact
Visit us at: Room 4.20, Faculty of Philology, ul. Pomorska 171/173, 90-236 Łódź
Or write to: aida.project@filologia.uni.lodz.pl
UNIVERSITY OF LODZ
Narutowicza 68, 90-136 LODZ
fax: 00 48 42/665 57 71, 00 48 42/635 40 43
NIP: 724 000 32 43
