Politeness and Alignment in Dialogues with a Virtual Guide

Language alignment is something that happens automatically in dialogues between human speakers. The ability to align is expected to increase the believability of virtual dialogue agents. In this paper we extend the notion of alignment to affective language use, describing a model for dynamically adapting the linguistic style of a virtual agent to the level of politeness and formality detected in the user’s utterances. The model has been implemented in the Virtual Guide, an embodied conversational agent giving directions in a virtual environment. Evaluation shows that our formality model needs improvement, but that the politeness tactics used by the Guide are mostly interpreted as intended, and that the alignment to the user’s language is noticeable

Conflicts and Facework in Online Discussions

The purpose of this study is to explore the relation between conflict and the outcomes of online discussions, the moderating effect of facework behaviors on the relation between conflict and online discussion outcomes, the effect of gender in this relation, and in the moderating effect of facework behaviors. During a two-week period, participants (149) in groups of three to four members used an online discussion board to discuss topics commonly controversial. The results indicate that conflict influenced the outcomes of online discussions; facework behaviors moderated the relation between conflict and outcomes; and gender influenced the choice of facework behaviors each member adopted during discussions

Natural interaction with a virtual guide in a virtual environment: A multimodal dialogue system

This paper describes the Virtual Guide, a multimodal dialogue system represented by an embodied conversational agent that can help users to find their way in a virtual environment, while adapting its affective linguistic style to that of the user. We discuss the modular architecture of the system, and describe the entire loop from multimodal input analysis to multimodal output generation. We also describe how the Virtual Guide detects the level of politeness of the user’s utterances in real-time during the dialogue and aligns its own language to that of the user, using different politeness strategies. Finally we report on our first user tests, and discuss some potential extensions to improve the system

Do Facework Behaviors Matter During Conflicts Among Online Discussion Team Members?

According to researchers, face is an important possession carried by individuals into interactions with others. Face has been studied in diverse areas such as: politeness, compliance gaining, emotional discourse, negotiations, face-negotiation theory, and conflict. Perhaps because of its value, face can be vulnerable during conflict situations. Facework behaviors are the communicative strategies that people use during conflicts to protect face (theirs or others), threaten others\u27 face, and to avoid or resolve conflicts. So far, studies about facework behaviors have focused on face-to-face interactions. Preliminary studies have shown: a. facework behaviors may affect the outcomes of online discussion teams, b. sex may play a role in the relationship between facework behaviors and online discussion outcomes, and c. conflicts among online discussion team members may influence discussion outcomes. This research explores more completely the role that facework behaviors play during conflicts, their influence on online discussion outcomes, and the role that sex plays in these matters. Data gathered from surveys and transcripts of participants\u27 online discussion postings show that facework behaviors: a. influence conflict levels, b. influence the outcomes of the online discussion teams, and c. play a moderating role on the relationship between conflicts and online discussion outcomes. They also indicate that sex plays a moderating role in these relationships. Moreover, this study shows that the typology of facework behaviors, originally developed to describe face-related aspects of face-to-face interactions, has value in understanding online discussions

CLUB Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 6

Questo sesto volume della collana “CLUB Working Papers in Linguistics” raccoglie alcuni dei contributi presentati nel corso delle iniziative organizzate dal Circolo Linguistico dell’Università di Bologna nell’anno accademico 2020-2021. Risalgono al programma ufficiale i primi tre saggi, a firma rispettivamente di Elisa Corino (Università di Torino), Marina Benedetti (Università per Stranieri di Siena) e Andrea Sansò (Università dell’Insubria). I successivi tre contributi sono stati originariamente presentati in occasione dei seminari periodici del Circolo; si tratta dei lavori di Silvia Brambilla e Idea Basile (Università di Bologna e Università Roma “La Sapienza”), Marta Maffia e Massimo Pettorino (Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”) e Anna Dall’Acqua (Università di Bologna e Injenia S.r.L.). Il volume si chiude con un articolo di Ottavia Cepraga, vincitrice del premio ‘Una tesi in linguistica’ 2021