Pragma-dialectics is the approach to the study of argumentation developed by Frans van Eemeren and the late Rob Grootendorst of the department of speech communication, argumentation theory and rhetoric at the University of Amsterdam. According to this approach, canonically articulated in English in three successive works (1984, 1992, in press), argumentation is a complex speech act, with the usual four types of "felicity conditions" (Searle, 1969): propositional content and essential conditions

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... (together called identity conditions), and preparatory and sincerity conditions (together called correctness conditions). Since speech act theory belongs to pragmatics (the study of the uses of language), the construal of argumentation as a speech act explains the "pragma" in the label "pragmadialectics". Pragma-dialecticians apply their model not only to explicit back-and-forth argumentative discus,>ions but also to mono logical argumentation, which is analyzed as if it were a contribution to a critical discussion, with the author anticipating the responses of a rational critic. ©