THE QUALITY OF ARGUMENTATION IN THE STUDENTS’ STATE EXAM COMPOSITIONS IN 2006 FROM THE SOCIO-COGNITIVE POINT OF VIEW

Education is the system of human knowledge, skills, abilities, values and behavioural norms that enables one to develop, cope and fulfil himself as an individual and member of society. Argumentative skills have a crucial role in civil education and thus also critical thinking comes to be emphasised within mother tongue education. The present article focuses on the quality of argumentation in the only compulsory state examination in the Estonian educational system – the composition. The article concentrates on the given topic based on the national compositions written in 2006, the sample included 500 compositions. The article is laid by the socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse analysis, and also explains the applied methodology. The relations between language and language users are described from the point of view of geographical and social variation. The current article presents the results of the textual grammar and syntax. The coherence of argumentation and sentences are studied according to macrostructures set by T.A van Dijk and superstructures set by M.Hoey. The discussion explains the specific features of argumentative composition from the point of view of ideology, and also the possibilities for improving the pupils' argumentative skills in mother tongue education. Critical and creative thinking are essential to the quality of education.