Resumen

SERRANO DE MORENO, Stella  y  VILLALOBOS, José. Argumentative strategies in texts written by teacher education students. Letras [online]. 2008, vol.50, n.77, pp.76-102. ISSN 0459-1283.

The main purpose of this study was to examine which discursive strategies were employed by students of teacher education at the School of Education of the Universidad de Los Andes, while writing an argumentative text. By means of case studies, and applying the discourse analysis method, it was possible to characterize the discursive strategies employed in a sample of twenty five texts produced by students. The study revealed: a) students’ lack of global argumentative orientation, of rhetoric strategies and of argumentative operations necessary for structuring discourse with social orientation; b) absence of training in discursive procedures for students to increase their efficacy when trying to convince or persuade. These findings indicate students’ profound lack of analytical and critical thought, which affects their performance in written language, their ability to interpret and produce a text, to access knowledge and to structure their language and thought

Palabras clave : argumentative strategies; written discourse; teacher education students.