The Effects of Computer Mediated Communication on the Processes of Communication and Collaboration

This thesis investigates the effects of computer-mediated communication upon collaborative problem solving. The results of three studies are presented, which explore the range of channels of communication afforded by two dissimilar forms of computer-mediated communication. The first study explores the effects of an interactive text-based form of computer-mediated communication, which provides users with a very restricted range of channels. Studies two and three examine the effects of collaborating in a video-mediated context, a technologically sophisticated communication system that affords an array of channels of communication more similar to face-to-face interactions. The effects of these communicative contexts are assessed using a multi-faceted approach. This method of evaluation is based upon analysis of task performance, the structure of the interactions, and measures of the process and content of communication. The findings show that the novice users of these computer-mediated contexts can achieve effective communication and collaboration, but the ease and pace with which this is accomplished varies with communicative context. Users of the highly constrained text-based system initially performed less well on the collaborative tasks, but with experience adapted to the context in appropriate ways. Participants in the video-mediated conditions appeared to adjust quickly to this context. Subtle differences in the structure, process and content of their interactions show that they also had to make allowances for the restraints imposed by the technologically mediated context. These results are discussed within the frame-work of a collaborative model of communication

Situační parametry a škála formálnosti: víceaspektová analýza autentických vzorků diskursů

The thesis aims to investigate the influence of situational parameters on the choice of lexicogrammatical units of language producers. The main focus is placed on the register of language and individual aspects of it are introduced. The phenomenon of human language use is approached specifically from the point of view of sociolinguistics in order to prove the importance of the role of language in social interaction. The practical part of the diploma thesis is dedicated to the multiaspectual analysis of three authentic discourse samples, which differ from one another in the contexts they take place in. Based on the proportion of individual parts of speech in each of these samples, a scale of formality is finally designed in order to determine the most and the least formal of them.Diplomová práce zkoumá vliv situačních parametrů na výběr lexikogramatických prostředků jazykového uživatele. Cílem je zjistit, jak kontext, ve kterém je jazyk využíván, ovlivňuje formulace mluvčího. Zvláštní pozornost je věnována pojmu registr a v souvislosti s tímto pojmem jsou představeny jednotlivé aspekty, které předurčují způsob, jakým jazykoví uživatelé vyjadřují svá sdělení. Celá problematika je rozebírána především ze sociolingvistického hlediska, jazyk je tedy zkoumán v kontextu lidské společnosti. Praktická část se věnuje víceaspektové analýze třech autentických vzorků, které se liší právě situačními parametry, ve kterých je jazyk užíván. Na základě výpočtu založeného na poměru jednotlivých slovních druhů jsou tyto vzorky nakonec seřazeny od nejformálnějšího po nejméně formální.Katedra anglického jazyka a literaturyPedagogická fakultaFaculty of Educatio

Modelling Turn-taking in a Simulation of Small Group Discussion

Institute for Communicating and Collaborative SystemsThe organization of taking turns at talk is an important part of any verbal interaction such as conversation, particularly in groups. Sociologists and psycholinguists have been studying turn-taking in conversation through empirical and statistical analysis, and identified some systematics in it. But to my knowledge no detailed computational modelling of verbal turn-taking has yet been attempted. This thesis describes one such attempt, for a simulation of small group discussion— that is, engaged conversation in groups of up to seven participants, which researchers have found to be much like two-person dialogues with overhearers. The group discussion is simulated by a simple multi-agent framework with a blackboard architecture, where each agent represents a participant in the discussion and the blackboard is their channel of communication, or ‘environment’ of the discussion. Agents are modelled with just a set of probabilistic parameters that give their likelihood of doing the various turn-taking decisions in the simulation: when to talk, when to continue talking, when to interrupt, when to give feedback (“uh huh”), and so on. The simulation, therefore, consists of coordinating a one-at-a-time talk (symbolic talk) with speaker transitions, hesitation, yielding or keeping the floor, and managing simultaneous talk which occurs mostly around speaker transitions. The turn-taking modelling considers whether participants are talking or not, and when they reach points of possible completion in their utterances that correspond to the places of transition-relevance, TRPs, where others could start to speak in attempts to take a new turn of talk. The agent behaviours (acts), their internal states and procedures are then described. The model is expanded with elaborate procedures for the resolution of simultaneous talk, for speaking hesitations and their potential interruption, and for the constraints of the different ‘sorts’ of utterance with respect to turn-taking: whether the TRP is free, or the speaker has selected someone to speak next, has encouraged anyone to speak, or has indicated the course of an extended multi-utterance turn at talk as in sentence beginnings like “first of all,” or “let me tell you something:. . . ”. The model and extensions are then comprehensively analysed through a series of large quantitative evaluations computing various aggregate statistics such as: the total times of single talk, multiple talk and silences; total occurrences of utterances, silences, simultaneous talk, multiple starts, middle-of-utterance attempts at talking, false-starts, abandoned utterances (interrupted by others), and more

“Life Languages” of the Francophone and Germanophone Diaspora: Preserving Louisiana French and Pennsylvania German through Written and Non-Written Life Narratives

In recent years, there has been increased interest in the multilingual cultural production of creators in the United States (cf. Li and Wen, 2015; Rim, 2009), particularly in the context of increasing discrimination against multilingual agents in the nation from members of the public (cf. Acevedo, 2019; Díez, 2019), from English-only movements (Barker et al., 2001; Schildkraut, 2003) and from public figures (CNN, 2015). However, while research in some areas of multicultural and multilingual identity continues to grow (cf. Li and Wen, 2015; Rim, 2009), there remains little focus on the French- and German-speaking communities that reside there, despite the long heritage of these groups (cf. Ancelet, 1994; Louden, 2016; Rabalais, 2017, 2021). This means that there is little understanding of the way in which the French and German languages are used in the United States and how these communities have preserved their unique identity as Francophones and Germanophones in a predominately Anglophone country, nor is there much information on how members have signalled their belonging to said community through life narratives. This thesis seeks to bring attention to the methods of depicting life used by these communities, with a focus on the way in which the languages spoken by these communities – namely Louisiana French and Pennsylvania German – are utilised, both in their written forms and in conjunction with non-written forms of narrative, as a method of linguistic and cultural preservation. Using life writing theory (Lejeune, 1989; Smith and Watson) and theories on cultural and linguistic metissage (cf. Bakhtin, 1981; Bradley, 2019; Glissant, 1989), this thesis problematises the concept of “life writing” informed by biopolitical theory (e.g. Agamben, 1998; 1975, 1997, 2004; Puumeister, 2009) with the aim of determining the effectiveness of writing as a means of portraying and preserving ‘life’ for these communities (e.g. Romaine, 2008)

The Emergence of Dialogic Identities: Transforming Heteroglossia in the Marquesas, F.P.

Te \u27Enana \u27the people\u27 of the Marquesas, French Polynesia, have been engaged for some time in the dialogic negotiation of their heteroglossic identity. Based on an ethnographic study of language socialization in the Marquesas, this dissertation examines how communicative forms are acquired within a changing socio-cultural matrix, as well as on how cultural habits and beliefs are produced and reproduced via verbal interaction. My first two months of fieldwork were spent in Tahiti (the capital of French Polynesia), living and studying the language use and cultural patterns of an \u27enana family. Subsequently, I spent ten months in a village in the Marquesas, taping at regular intervals the everyday interactions of children and their caregivers within four families and transcribing these with the aid of the caregivers. The transcripts and the caregiver metalinguistic commentary were analyzed for the contexts and functions of code-switching between francais (the local variety of French), \u27enana (including several dialects of the language, spoken in the Marquesas), and sarapia (a stigmatized \u27mixed\u27 code); the communicative genres laden with cultural expectations as to how people ought to think, feel, and act; and the socializing routines influencing these beliefs and practices via participant-observation and informal interviews, I also collected a wide range of information concerning everyday social interactions, routine verbal practices, and cultural notions concerning the value, use, learning, and potential loss of the language. My findings are as follows. Despite the flowering of a cultural revival movement, a complex political economic situation (beginning with the establishment of the French nuclear testing facility in 1963) is responsible for an increase in code-switching and decrease in the acquisition and use of \u27enana by children. Nonetheless, the language continues to be learned and used by many as both medium and marker of an ethnolinguistic identity which is the syncretic product of indigenous reactions to two centuries of foreign influence and rule. Furthermore, while bearing the partial imprimatur of western thought and practice, \u27enana ways of structuring verbal interaction and the acquisition of communicative resources reveal some deeper systemic commitments to pan-Pacific cultural and communicative practices

Dialogue and the machine: an interactional perspective on computer dialogue models, mediation and artifacts

The topic of this thesis is the notion of dialogue and how machines have not only influenced the development of our understanding of this fundamental human social activity but also the possibilities for engaging in mediated dialogue. In particular, the concern is with its adoption and distortion from a computational point of view. An interactional perspective is developed that provides insight into the problems and limitations of computer dialogue models, motivates the investigation of the achievement of dialogue mediated 'through' machines, and informs the conception and design of computer systems (or artifacts) that support the metaphor of dialogue 'with' machines. To motivate a reconstruction of the notion of dialogue and a different understanding of the status of machines in terms of action, a critical analysis of computer models of dialogue, concerning theory, data and implementation, is given. In general, computer models lack a consideration of interaction as a constitutive domain, assume the interchange model of dialogue, promote a sanitised view of data, and are a poor foundation for the design of machines that are to engage in dialogue-like behaviour with a user. An alternative interactional perspective is derived from hermeneutics and ethnomethodology in which it is argued that the machine is an intelligible - not intelligent - artifact, and communicative activity is circumstantial, situated and interactively constituted. Instead of reifying dialogue as the repeated exchange of discrete messages between isolated cognitive processors (the interchange model), dialogue is understood here to be the collection of practices in which parties are mutually engaged in coordinating communicative actions and achieving shared understanding out of the materials at hand. The empirical methodology of the thesis comes from conversation analysis and forms the basis for the investigation of the achievement of dialogue 'through' machines. A detailed audio-visual study of a particular computer-mediated communication modality is presented. Parties engaged in cooperatively constructing mutual orientation in dialogue (in a virtual dialogue space) were recorded and features of their conduct were rendered for analysis with the aid of a notation system specially developed for this study. The findings are that the computer-mediated dialogue activity is a skilled, interactive accomplishment in which dialogic presence, monitoring and participation are contingently created and maintained. An emergent transformation of the dialogue activity demonstrates the situated work of constructing participation, a process that is shaped by the dynamics of that activity. A brief study of copresent collaboration documents two further features: the embodiment of actions and their complementarity. The consequences of the interactional perspective and the empirical study for computer models and dialogue 'with' machines are discussed. Suggestions are also made about an alternative use of computer modelling for dialogue 'between' machines, and about the future of dialogue mediation and artifacts