Diderot and the Dialogue

Verbal interaction presupposes and defines at the same time a co-action and an argumentation frame, namely a space in which, once certain actions are initiated/certain conclusions are envisaged, the interlocutors are forced to debate, lose or save face, score points, negotiate in order to find a solution, confirm standpoints or argue. The analysis of our corpus allows us to examine the features that characterize Diderot"s dialogue, which proves to be still very modern with respect to the questioning-answering system, and to conceive it in terms of a broad dialogical argumentation built either according to the principle of stichomythia, or to the principle of maieutics, as a dialogical technique that goes beyond traditional conversation to announce the modern interview. Our research is an outward to inward approach, taking into account two characteristics of conversation - a surface one - the dialogical form, and an internal one - the dialogical function, acting as a discursive cohesion factor.