Computing Perspective in Dialogue - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 208

10.6.6 S EQUENCE OF ELEMENTARY DIALOGUES
J.-P. Sartre: I wrote you a letter yesterday. (statement, Sect. 10.1-10.3)
S. de Beauvoir: What did you write? (WH question, Sect. 10.4)
J.-P. Sartre: A little poem. (WH answer, Sect. 10.4)
S. de Beauvoir: Is the poem about me? (Yes/No question, Sect. 10.5)
J.-P. Sartre : Ye s . (Yes/No answer, Sect. 10.5)
S. de Beauvoir: (Please) pass the ashtray! (request, Sect. 10.6)
J.-P. Sartre: fullfils request (fullfilment, Sect. 10.6)
Each of the elementary dialogues is a characteristic sequence of turns which
consist of the following perspective conversions:
10.6.7 P ERSPECTIVE CONVERSIONS AS TIME - LINEAR SEQUENCES
1. Statement
STAR-0: emergence of a nonlanguage content in agent A (Sect. 10.1)
STAR-1: production of a statement by agent A as the speaker (Sect. 10.2)
STAR-2: interpretation of statement by agent B as the hearer (Sect. 10.3)
2. Question Dialogue (WH (Sect. 10.4) and Yes/No (Sect.10.5) questions)
STAR-0: emergence of a nonlang. content in agent A as the questioner
STAR-1: production of a question by agent A as the speaker
STAR-2: interpretation of the question by agent B as the hearer
STAR-1: production of an answer by agent B as the speaker
STAR-2: interpretation of the answer by agent A as the hearer
3. Request Dialogue (Sect. 10.6)
STAR-0: emergence of a nonlanguage content in agent A as the requestor
STAR-1: production of a request by agent A as the speaker
STAR-2: interpretation of the request by agent B as the hearer
STAR-1: nonlang. or lang. fulfillment action by agent B as the requestee
STAR-2: nonlanguage or language fulfillment recognition by agent A as
the requestor
Our analysis has proceeded systematically from the perspective of the speaker
to that of the hearer. The transition from one perspective to the next is de-
scribed in terms of explicit STAR inferences. Part of the analysis is the inter-
pretation of first and second person pronouns (indexicals), which is different
for the speaker and the hearer. Our theory complements Schegloff's (2007)
sociolinguistic analysis of many recorded and transcribed dialogues.