This paper consists of a detailed analysis of how the participants to a debate build their emotional position during the interaction and how such a position is related to the conclusion they defend. Our case study of teenage Mexican students arguing on access to drinking water in the future shows extensive discursive work on the emotional tonality given to the issue and to each alternative of response. Methodological tools proposed by Plantin (2011) are used to follow two alternative emotional framings made by opposing groups of students, starting from a common, highly negative, thymical tonality. Through the analysis of four parameters (distance to the problem; causality/agentivity; possibility of control and conformity to the shared norms) we describe how the emotional dimension of the schématisation (Grize, 1996) is argumentatively relevant as an orientation/orientating process. A special focus is made in the last section on the relationship between norms and emotions.