Answering Unanswered Questions through Semantic Reformulations in Spoken QA

Spoken Question Answering (QA) is a key feature of voice assistants, usually backed by multiple QA systems. Users ask questions via spontaneous speech which can contain disfluencies, errors, and informal syntax or phrasing. This is a major challenge in QA, causing unanswered questions or irrelevant answers, and leading to bad user experiences. We analyze failed QA requests to identify core challenges: lexical gaps, proposition types, complex syntactic structure, and high specificity. We propose a Semantic Question Reformulation (SURF) model offering three linguistically-grounded operations (repair, syntactic reshaping, generalization) to rewrite questions to facilitate answering. Offline evaluation on 1M unanswered questions from a leading voice assistant shows that SURF significantly improves answer rates: up to 24% of previously unanswered questions obtain relevant answers (75%). Live deployment shows positive impact for millions of customers with unanswered questions; explicit relevance feedback shows high user satisfaction.Comment: Accepted by ACL 2023 Industry Trac

Dialogic Teaching: Discussing Theoretical Contexts and Reviewing Evidence from Classroom Practice.

Drawing on recent developments in dialogic approaches to learning and teaching, I examine the roots of dialogic meaning-making as a concept in classroom practices. Developments in the field of dialogic pedagogy are reviewed and the case for dialogic engagement as an approach to classroom interaction is considered. The implications of dialogic classroom approaches are discussed in the context of educational research and classroom practice. Dialogic practice is contrasted with monologic practices as evidenced by the resilient of the IRF as the default discourse structure in classrooms. Recent evidence suggests the IRF is resistant to attempts to introduce interactive approaches to whole class teaching. Discussion of dialogic practice as a vehicle for increasing pupil engagement at a deep level and raising the quality of classroom interaction is illustrated through a consideration of Philosophy for Children, which is identified as a dialogic approach to classroom practice which has transformative potential for children's learning. Philosophy for Children offers an approach to pedagogy which enables teachers to value pupil voice and promote reflective learning. As such it has much to offer the current debate on dialogic teaching and learning. Research evidence suggests it will promote improved pupil outcomes on a range of assessments

From the original article to the summary for patients: Reformulation procedures in intralingual translation

The wider access to information and the tendency toward patient education have increased the demand for medical texts aimed at a wide, non-specialized, heterogeneous audience. In this context, it is essential to know what procedures are required to make specialized knowledge accessible to non-experts. This paper presents a corpus-based exploratory study that describes the procedures employed to reformulate, intralingually, medical knowledge from a highly specialized genre, the original article (OA), into a genre derived directly from it but addressed to laymen, namely, the summary for patients (SP). The linguistic and textual changes that take place when translating an OA into an SP are taken as the basis for explaining the reformulation procedures used. The results of the study contribute to the characterization of the SP from a text genre perspective, and provide keys to writing and reformulating for both medical translators and experts in the field, who are often called upon to carry out these intralingual translations

Using contextual information to understand searching and browsing behavior

There is great imbalance in the richness of information on the web and the succinctness and poverty of search requests of web users, making their queries only a partial description of the underlying complex information needs. Finding ways to better leverage contextual information and make search context-aware holds the promise to dramatically improve the search experience of users. We conducted a series of studies to discover, model and utilize contextual information in order to understand and improve users' searching and browsing behavior on the web. Our results capture important aspects of context under the realistic conditions of different online search services, aiming to ensure that our scientific insights and solutions transfer to the operational settings of real world applications

Who can tell me what the product actually means, and Kate’s got the right answer-ish, let’s just tweak it…” Follow-up strategies in the U.K primary school classroom: Does teacher gender matter?

© 2019 McDowell J. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Jobs are rarely seen as gender neutral but built on gendered stereotypes as to what they involve, and the gendered characteristics assumed needed to perform them. Despite an increase in the number of women entering ‘male’ workplaces, gendered occupational stereotypes continue to endure as they are so deeply entrenched within community. Furthermore, even with frequent government initiatives, men’s numbers are not increasing in ‘female’ occupations such as teaching as these jobs persistent to be seen as only suitable for those with ‘feminine’ characteristics. Fewer than 15 percent of United Kingdom (U.K.) primary school teachers are male. De-stereotyping this work role is therefore of key importance as we need more qualified teachers in the U.K. To date, there has been relatively little research into the linguistic behaviour of men working in primary school teaching. To address this gap, this current paper focuses on men’s discursive behaviour in the occupation of teaching in an attempt to begin to de-stereotype this profession through an exploration of how the job is actually performed through language to assess whether teacher gender affects teaching strategies utilised in the classroom. This paper reports on the qualitative findings from an exploratory case study that examines male and female primary school teachers’ linguistic strategies in teacher-led class instruction. To provide empirical insights into how this work-role practice is performed, this paper focuses on the oral feedback given by the teacher to pupils to examine how they use follow-up strategies. Data collected by 12 teachers across 4 schools in Hertfordshire in the U.K. was explored using Interactional Sociolinguistics and a social constructionist perspective. Results demonstrate both female and male teachers actively constructing a context-dependent teaching identity, with their language breaking stereotypical gendered norms of speaking. The discursive behaviour of these teachers should therefore not be described as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’, but rather labelled as the discourse of doing ‘being’ a teacher. They are using the unmarked speech styles in this environment as the work role guides, shapes and permeates their discursive choices. Arguably then, gender is not an overriding variable here in being a teacher. These findings lend support to the current ongoing debate for the imperative need to de-gender how we think about language use, occupations, and the skills and characteristics one is assumed to have simply because of their gender. Men often decide against becoming a primary teacher because they think it is a female profession. We must re-interpret language use as reflecting professional identity rather than gender identity. By raising awareness of primary school teachers’ linguistic behaviour, we may start to take steps towards de-gendering the job for only then may we see more men taking up such professional occupations. This research has important implications for U.K government incentives which currently try to recruit men by stressing that they are needed for hegemonic ‘masculine’ reasons, which only serves to strengthen gender stereotypes.Peer reviewe

ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND MEANING NEGOTIATION IN ELF TRANSCULTURAL CONTEXTS

In ELF contexts both linguistic and cultural practices cannot be taken for granted, but they need to be jointly negotiated by interactants to create a shared frame of reference. Therefore, in this dissertation I suggest the expression ‘ELF Transcultural Communication’ to highlight the necessary link between ELF research and Intercultural Communication studies and I propose ‘ELF Transcultural Competence’ as a new model of reference for the skills that are necessary to effectively and appropriately achieve the speaker’s communicative goal(s) in ELF transcultural contexts. Following this perspective, the ability to negotiate mutual understanding and to strategically manage the interaction is fundamental. Hence, the study aims at investigating how communication strategies are used in ELF Transcultural Communication in the meaning making process and in the negotiation of cultural concepts and at exploring how their use can be included in an ELF-aware pedagogy. First, an overview of research on ELF and on Intercultural Communication is provided, discussing the concepts of language and culture as complex systems that emerge in interaction. Successively, traditional conceptualisations of Communicative Competence and Intercultural Communicative Competence are called into question, remarking their unsuitability for ELF transcultural contexts. In turn, the framework of ELF Transcultural Competence, based on the concepts of ELF Competence and Intercultural Awareness, is discussed as a more appropriate model for these contexts. The use of communication strategies in ELF Transcultural Communication are then outlined, discussing how meaning and understanding are negotiated and co-constructed in interaction and the relevance of communication strategies in these processes. The communication strategies that are analysed in the data have been selected from ELF literature on the topic: backchannels, lexical anticipations, lexical suggestions and corrections, over multilingual resources, reformulations, repetitions, and spellings. The data set of the dissertation is based on two ELF corpora, the VOICE-Leisure sub-corpus and the ViMELF corpus, and has been analysed through a mixed method approach that combines Conversation Analysis and descriptive statistics. The findings confirm what has been observed in ELF studies on the topic and they show that communication strategies are productive tools to actively co-construct mutual understanding and to negotiate meaning in interaction, playing a fundamental role in ELF Transcultural Communication. In addition, the strategic moves examined show a frequent co-occurrence, with several functions performed at once, showcasing how meaning can be negotiated in different ways, and how strategic communication is a fundamental aspect to consider when investigating ELF interactions. Finally, the discussion of the pedagogical implications is presented. The inclusion of the use of communication strategies aimed at strategically managing interaction in an ELF-aware pedagogy is introduced and illustrated through some practical activities

A review of the effectiveness of a brief (8 session) Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) for clients with anger problems

This report represents evaluative data from 12 months of psychotherapeutic intervention using Cognitive Analytic Therapy at Winn Gardens and some reflections on the subsequent development of the project into Burngreave. The focus of the intervention was primarily managing anger but other psychological problems underlying anger have also been treated. In total 23 referrals were received and 8 completed case of „evaluation‟ are presented here. Results indicate a significant improvement in general health, psychological health and behaviour change from what is a brief therapy consisting of 8 sessions and a follow up. The intervention has diverted clients from assaulting behaviour, both to themselves and others, reducing the impact of violence on partners, others, health and social care services and police and court services. It is difficult to quantify this but the associated costs for anger and violence are significant and incalculable. Up to July 2010 14 referrals were received at Burngreave all of whom were contacted, offered an appointment and/or undertook therapy. Four clients have completed therapy with a number of others taking up a number of sessions. It is anticipated that similar positive therapeutic outcomes to Winn Gardens will be found in the population at Burngreave on completion.</p

Sunday Friends: The Working Alternative to Charity

Sunday Friends is a non-profit organization in San José, California, that provides multiple activities for families who are in need of financial support. Given the particular location of the program, most families are Latino and bilingual. Participants and program volunteers form a community at an elementary school on a couple of scheduled Sundays each month. When family members participate in activities designed to educate, improve skills, and to give back to the larger community, they earn tickets that they can redeem for items that they need and want from the Sunday Friends store. Activities include healthy cooking projects, “Thank You Letter” writing, English-as-a-Second-Language programs, crafts, and education in nutrition and financial literacy. The program’s central focus is to empower families to break out of poverty. A specific guiding principal is the developmental assets approach promoted by the Search Institute in Minneapolis (http://www.search-institute.org/). This approach encourages individuals and organizations to work together toward a common goal of supporting the healthy development of all children and youth. Healthy development is conceptualized as consisting of the development of external assets (i.e., support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, constructive activities) and internal assets (i.e., commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity). The 2009 evaluation’s primary focus was on whether Sunday Friends was succeeding at fostering developmental assets for children. Other relevant indicators of success were perceptions of program effectiveness, regard for program activities, and nutrition and healthy eating habits. Data were gathered from family members (adults and minors) during program activities using written surveys administered by volunteers to the research team (most of whom were bilingual). The families were recruited in person by program staff onsite. The questionnaires were written in English and Spanish (with the choice made by respondents). Sunday Friends volunteers were recruited to the study via email by Sunday Friends staff. They completed questionnaires through an online survey platform. In all, 74 parents or guardians, 67 children or youth, and 45 volunteers participated in the data collection. Across the three sets of surveys (parents or guardians, children or youth, and volunteers), there are fairly consistent results. The families and volunteers in the Sunday Friends program believe that Sunday Friends is effectively engaging them and meeting its goals. Overall, children and youth report positive experiences at Sunday Friends. On every dimension of psychological well-being, connectedness with others, and self-efficacy, the answers provided by children and youth indicate that Sunday Friends is promoting developmental assets. In addition, parents and guardians report that Sunday Friends has positive influences on their lives. The majority of measures, whether questions about self-efficacy, the effect of Sunday Friends on their children, or improved nutrition for their family, indicate that Sunday Friends is meeting its goals. Finally, volunteers agree that the program makes an important contribution to the lives of both children and adults. They also feel that Sunday Friends enhances their awareness of the community and contributes to making their personal lives more meaningful. The survey results presented here should be interpreted with caution because all persons surveyed were continuing participants in the program, and the cross-sectional data could not detect changes over time. Despite this caution, each group’s data and triangulation across family and volunteer surveys reveal that milestones are accomplished at Sunday Friends. It is safe to conclude that Sunday Friends’ community-based approach to empowering parents and youths is achieving its goals