16.3528, FYI: Workshop on Coherence in Generation and Dialogue

Tue Dec 13 15:57:18 UTC 2005

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3528. Tue Dec 13 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.3528, FYI: Workshop on Coherence in Generation and Dialogue

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1)
Date: 13-Dec-2005
From: ielka van der Sluis < ivdsluis at csd.abdn.ac.uk >
Subject: Workshop on Coherence in Generation and Dialogue 

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 10:53:08
From: ielka van der Sluis < ivdsluis at csd.abdn.ac.uk >
Subject: Workshop on Coherence in Generation and Dialogue 

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

Workshop on ''COHERENCE IN GENERATION AND DIALOGUE'' 

http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01rk/esslli2006.html

August 7th - 11th 2006

organized as part of the
European Summer School on Logic, Language and Information
ESSLLI 2006 http://esslli2006.lcc.uma.es/
31 July - 11 August, 2006 in Málaga

Workshop Organizers:

Rodger Kibble, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
Paul Piwek, Open University, UK
Ielka van der Sluis, University of Aberdeen, UK

Email contact: mcs_coherence_workshop<at>open.ac.uk
(Substitute @ sign for <at>)

WORKSHOP PURPOSE

  This workshop aims to compare and contrast different ways of 
  modelling coherence in natural language generation and dialogue
  in order to guide decisions such as:

  - what is an appropriate response at a given point in a dialogue?
  - what is the optimal ordering of propositions in a discourse?
  - how should predicates, referring expressions and rhetorical 
    relations be realised (verbally and/or non-verbally) so that the
    resulting utterance can be interpreted naturally and fluently?

  The intention is to provide a forum for advanced PhD students 
  and researchers to present and discuss their work with 
  colleagues and researchers who work in the broad subject 
  areas represented at ESSLLI.

WORKSHOP TOPICS

  Approaches to coherence modelling can be broadly summarised 
  under three main headings: mentalistic, abstract/formal and 
  social/normative, which are described below. We welcome submissions
  from graduate students or established researchers that focus on
  generation tasks and either exemplify one of these approaches or
  offer comparisons or constructive criticisms of one or more
  frameworks.

  Authors should make clear in their submissions:

  - how they interpret the notion of ''coherence'' and how their work 
    contributes to a deeper understanding of this notion;
  - the applicability of their work to generation tasks.

  Possible topics are listed as bullet points below, but this 
  list is not intended to be exhaustive.

1. Mentalistic: modelling attentional states, intentions, 
   purpose etc, as in e.g. Grosz and Sidner, Cohen and 
   Levesque, Bunt, Ginzburg's QUD, Mann and Thompson's 
   Rhetorical Structure Theory:

   - content selection on the basis of the preconditions
     of the next turn (meaning and purpose)
   - context dynamics and grounding
   - local interactions, participants and particular situations
   - intentions wrt dialogue plan and wrt collaboration
   - how to combine multiple dialogue acts per utterance?

2. Abstract formal models: SDRT, Webber's D-LTAG, some interpretations
   of Centering:

   - textual coherence: consistency of syntactic resources 
     and thematic development of discourse thematic structure
     + focus shifting
   - concept coherence: clear references- how often can
     the same referring expression be repeated? 
     (overspecification)
   - generation via templates or grammar (fast or incremental)
   - relevance
   - consistency and truth maintenance.

3. Social/normative, using notions like obligation and commitment:
   e.g. Traum and Poesio, Walton and Krabbe, Brandom:

   - interaction management and dialogue control
   - turn taking, feedback, clarification and repair
   - obligations to address questions or to acknowledge assertions
   - conditional obligations to execute directives
   - commitments to defend an assertion if queried
   - overt or implicit retraction of commitments
   - sanctions for failure to meet commitments and obligations

SUBMISSION DETAILS

  Authors should submit abstracts of up to 2000 words in 
  PDF format to the email contact  address  given  above. 
  The submissions will be reviewed by the workshop's programme 
  committee and additional reviewers. The accepted papers will  
  appear in the workshop proceedings published by ESSLLI. Final 
  versions may be up to 8 pages and must be formatted in LaTeX, 
  using style files which will be specified at the time of 
  notification.

  Proceedings will also be published electronically by the 
  workshop organisers. We are in discussion with the editors of the
  Journal for Logic, Language and Information (JoLLI) about the 
  possibility of publishing a selection of high-quality
  papers from the workshop as a special issue, after a further
  round of reviewing.

WORKSHOP FORMAT

  The workshop is part of ESSLLI and is open to all ESSLLI 
  participants.  It will consist of five 90-minute sessions 
  held over five consecutive days in the second week
  of ESSLLI.  There will be 2 - 3 slots for paper presentation 
  and discussion per session.  On the first day the workshop 
  organizers will give an introduction to the topic, followed 
  by a talk by our invited speaker.

INVITED SPEAKER: Robbert Jan Beun, Universiteit Utrecht, NL

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE (to date, further names may be added):

  Rieks op den Akker
  Harry Bunt
  Jonathan Ginzburg
  Dirk Heylen
  Erik Krabbe
  Emiel Krahmer
  Peter Kuhnlein
  Jill Nickerson
  Massimo Poesio
  Richard Power
  Matthew Purver
  Hannes Rieser
  Donia Scott
  Wilbert Spooren
  Matthew Stone
  Mariet Theune
  Sandra Williams

IMPORTANT DATES

  Submissions        : March 8, 2006
  Notification       : April 21, 2006
  Full paper deadline: May 8th, 2006
  Final programme    : June 21, 2006
  Workshop Dates     : August 7 - 11, 2006

LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS

  All workshop participants including the presenters will be
  required to register for ESSLLI.  The registration fee for 
  authors presenting a paper will correspond to the early 
  student/workshop speaker registration fee.  Moreover, a number
  of additional fee waiver grants might be made available by 
  the local organizing committee on a competitive basis and 
  workshop participants are eligible to apply for those. 

  There will be no reimbursement for travel costs or accommodation.
  Workshop speakers who have difficulty in finding funding 
  should contact the local organizing committee to ask for the 
  possibilities of a grant. 

FURTHER INFORMATION

  About the workshop: http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01rk/esslli2006.html

  About ESSLLI: http://esslli2006.lcc.uma.es/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics

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