{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T03:43:28Z","timestamp":1777434208836,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":43,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,9,12]],"date-time":"2019-09-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1568246400000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Argument &amp; Computation"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,1,29]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>In informal argument, an essential step is to ask what will \u201cresonate\u201d with a particular audience and hence persuade. Marketers, for example, may recommend a certain colour for a new soda can because it \u201cpops\u201d on Instagram; politicians may \u201cfine-tune\u201d diction for different social demographics. This paper engages the need to strategise for such resonance by offering a method for automating opposition analysis (OA), a technique from semiotics used in marketing and literary analysis to plot objects of interest on oppositional axes. Central to our computational approach is a reframing of texts as proxies for thought and opposition as the product of oscillation in thought in response to those proxies, a model to which the contextual similarity information contained in word embeddings is relevant. We illustrate our approach with an analysis of texts on gun control from ProCon.org , implementing a three-step method to: 1)\u00a0identify relatively prominent signifiers; 2)\u00a0rank possible opposition pairs on prominence and contextual similarity scores; and 3)\u00a0derive plot values for proxies on opposition pair axes. The results are discussed in terms of strategies for informal argument that might be derived by those on each side of gun control.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3233\/aac-190467","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,9,13]],"date-time":"2019-09-13T11:41:50Z","timestamp":1568374910000},"page":"301-317","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Computational opposition analysis using word embeddings: A\u00a0method for strategising resonant informal argument"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"10","author":[{"given":"Cameron","family":"Shackell","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Queensland University of Technology, 2\u00a0George St, Brisbane 4000, Australia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Laurianne","family":"Sitbon","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Queensland University of Technology, 2\u00a0George St, Brisbane 4000, Australia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,9,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"P.B.\u00a0Andersen, A\u00a0Theory of Computer Semiotics: Semiotic Approaches to Construction and Assessment of Computer Systems, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1990.","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9780511665660"},{"key":"ref002","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/00335636709382826"},{"key":"ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1926.","DOI":"10.4159\/DLCL.aristotle-art_rhetoric.1926"},{"issue":"2","key":"ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"159","DOI":"10.12697\/SSS.2015.43.2-3.01","volume":"43","author":"Assaf D.","year":"2015","journal-title":"\u03a3\u03b7\u00b5\u03b5\u03b9\u03c9\u03c4\u03ba\u03b7\u00b4\u00a0\u2013 Sign Systems Studies"},{"key":"ref005","unstructured":"S.\u00a0Badir, How the semiotic square came, in: The Square of Opposition: A\u00a0General Framework for Cognition, J.Y.\u00a0Beziau and G.\u00a0Payette, eds, 2012, pp.\u00a0427\u2013439."},{"key":"ref006","unstructured":"M.\u00a0Danesi, The Quest for Meaning: A\u00a0Guide to Semiotic Theory and Practice, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2007."},{"key":"ref007","unstructured":"F.\u00a0De Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, Columbia University Press, New York, 2011[1916]."},{"key":"ref008","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0950-7051(01)00136-8"},{"issue":"1","key":"ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-031-02185-5","volume":"2","author":"De Souza C.S.","year":"2009","journal-title":"Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics"},{"key":"ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"J.\u00a0Fahnestock, Rhetorical Figures in Science, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1999.","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780195117509.001.0001"},{"key":"ref011","unstructured":"J.\u00a0Glenn and T.\u00a0Leone, Josh Glenn & Tony Leone, UNBORED games: \u201cSerious fun for everyone\u201d,\n                      Talks at Google\n                      , YouTube, 2015."},{"key":"ref012","unstructured":"Google, Google Code Archive\u00a0\u2013 word2vec 2017. 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