scholarly journals Building common ground: Quantifying the interplay of mechanisms that promote understanding in conversations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Dideriksen ◽  
Morten H. Christiansen ◽  
Kristian Tylén ◽  
Mark Dingemanse ◽  
Riccardo Fusaroli
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
Joint Decisions ◽  
Semantic Alignment ◽  
Computational Analyses ◽  
Task Oriented ◽  
And Task

Humans readily engage in idle chat, heated discussions, and negotiate tough joint decisions without ever having to think twice about the different mechanisms they use to keep the conversation grounded in mutual understanding. However, current attempts at identifying and assessing the grounding mechanisms that make this possible are fragmented across disciplines and investigate single mechanisms within single contexts. We present a comprehensive conceptual framework to investigate and quantify conversational grounding mechanisms, and how they adjust to contextual demands. In three corpus studies, we systematically test the role of three grounding mechanisms, backchannels, repair, and interactive alignment. Contrasting affiliative (AC) and task-oriented (TOC) conversations between and within participants, we find that grounding mechanisms adaptively adjust to the increased need for precision in the latter: Across Study 1 and Study 2, we show that low-precision mechanisms such as backchannels are more frequent in AC, while more costly but higher-precision mechanisms, such as specific repairs, are more frequent in TOC. Further, TOC involve higher complementarity of contributions in terms of the content and perspective: lower semantic alignment, and less frequent (but richer) lexical and syntactic alignment. Crucially, in Study 3, these variations in the use of grounding mechanisms are shown to be adaptive: pairs of interlocutors that show stronger linguistic complementarity perform better across the two tasks. By combining motivated comparisons of several conversational contexts, and theoretically informed computational analyses of empirical and experimental data, the present work lays the foundations for a comprehensive conceptual framework of grounding mechanisms in conversation.

scholarly journals Followers’ HEXACO personality traits and preference for charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leadership

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley Breevaart ◽  
Reinout E. de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Charismatic Leadership ◽  
Openness To Experience ◽  
Nomological Network ◽  
Charismatic Leader ◽  
Need Fulfillment ◽  
Task Oriented ◽  
Or Task ◽  
And Task

AbstractThe aim of the current study was to examine the HEXACO personality traits in relation to followers’ preference for charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leadership. Based on the similarity perspective, we expected followers high on Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience to prefer a charismatic leader, and those followers high on conscientiousness and low on Openness to Experience to prefer a task-oriented leader. In addition, from a need fulfillment perspective, we expected followers high on Emotionality to prefer a task- and a relationship-oriented leader. We examined these expectations using paper vignette methodology in a sample of 272 undergraduates. The results showed that most participants preferred a relationship-oriented leader over a charismatic or task-oriented leader. In addition, we found support for all our hypotheses, with the exception of the relations between Honesty-Humility and preference for charismatic leadership, and Conscientiousness and preference for task-oriented leadership. Our findings contribute to the nomological network of the role of follower characteristics in the leader-follower relationship. Implications and suggestions for research on charismatic leadership are provided.

Conceptualizing interstate cooperation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Moritz S. Graefrath ◽  
Marcel Jahn
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Joint Action ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Interstate Cooperation ◽  
General Consensus ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

Abstract There seems to exist a general consensus on how to conceptualize cooperation in the field of international relations (IR). We argue that this impression is deceptive. In practice, scholars working on the causes of international cooperation have come to implicitly employ various understandings of what cooperation is. Yet, an explicit debate about the discipline's conceptual foundations never materialized, and whatever discussion occurred did so only latently and without much dialog across theoretical traditions. In this paper, we develop an updated conceptual framework by exploring the nature of these differing understandings and situating them within broader theoretical conversations about the role of cooperation in IR. Drawing on an array of studies in IR and philosophy, our framework distinguishes between three distinct types of cooperative state interactions – cooperation through tacit policy coordination (‘minimal’ cooperation), cooperation through explicit policy coordination (‘thin’ cooperation), and cooperation based on joint action (‘thick’ cooperation). The framework contributes to better theorization about cooperation in two main ways: it allows scholars across theoretical traditions to identify important sources of disagreement and previously unnoticed theoretical common ground; and the conceptual disaggregation it provides grants scholars crucial theoretical leverage by enabling type-specific causal theorization.

scholarly journals Grounding behaviours with conversational interfaces: effects of embodiment and failures

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimosthenis Kontogiorgos ◽  
Andre Pereira ◽  
Joakim Gustafson
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Verbal Cues ◽  
Communication Task ◽  
Conversational Interfaces ◽  
Task Oriented

AbstractConversational interfaces that interact with humans need to continuously establish, maintain and repair common ground in task-oriented dialogues. Uncertainty, repairs and acknowledgements are expressed in user behaviour in the continuous efforts of the conversational partners to maintain mutual understanding. Users change their behaviour when interacting with systems in different forms of embodiment, which affects the abilities of these interfaces to observe users’ recurrent social signals. Additionally, humans are intellectually biased towards social activity when facing anthropomorphic agents or when presented with subtle social cues. Two studies are presented in this paper examining how humans interact in a referential communication task with wizarded interfaces in different forms of embodiment. In study 1 (N = 30), we test whether humans respond the same way to agents, in different forms of embodiment and social behaviour. In study 2 (N = 44), we replicate the same task and agents but introduce conversational failures disrupting the process of grounding. Findings indicate that it is not always favourable for agents to be anthropomorphised or to communicate with non-verbal cues, as human grounding behaviours change when embodiment and failures are manipulated.

scholarly journals Discovering Gaps in Internationalization Competences of SMEs–a Comparative Case Study of Austrian SMEs

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Johanna Anzengruber
Keyword(s):  
Study Design ◽  
Competence Development ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Case Study Design ◽  
Gap Data ◽  
Task Oriented ◽  
And Task ◽  
Organizational Competence

This article adds to the debate on internationalization competences of SMEs. After an examination of the most influential papers, we systematically discuss the role of individual and organizational competence gaps before and during the internationalization phase. In more detail, we raise the question what kinds of competences gaps hinder SMEs to go international and what competence gaps arise during the internationalization. This is done using a comparative case study design with competence gap data from twenty-four SMEs in China and Austria. Our research reveals severe differences in competence gaps among those SMEs who have internationalized and those who will internationalize theirs businesses. Indeed, we found out that while internationalized SMEs perceive organizational competence gaps as higher as individual ones – exactly the opposite is found at the SMEs working exclusively in their home markets. We conclude by proposing a systematic, continuous, and task-oriented allocation of the competence development efforts.

scholarly journals Orientations to negotiated language and task rules in online L2 interaction

ReCALL ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olcay Sert ◽  
Ufuk Balaman
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Task Engagement ◽  
Negotiation Of Meaning ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Interactional Competence ◽  
Task Oriented ◽  
And Task

AbstractRecent research shows that negotiation of meaning in online task-oriented interactions can be a catalyst for L2 (second/foreign/additional language) development. However, how learners undertake such negotiation work and what kind of an impact it has on interactional development in an L2 are still largely unknown mainly due to a lack of focus on task engagement processes. A conversation analytic investigation into negotiation of meaning (NoM) in task-oriented interactions can bring evidence to such development, as conversation analysis (CA), given its analytic tools, allows us to see how participant orientations in interaction evolve over time. Based on an examination of screen-recorded multiparty online task-oriented interactions, this study aimed to describe how users (n=8) of an L2 (1) negotiate and co-construct language and task rules and (2) later show orientations to these rules both in the short term (50 minutes) and in the long term (8 weeks). The findings showed that in addition to negotiating existing rules, the learners co-constructed new rules around an action called policing, which occurred when the learners attended to the breach of language and task rules. Furthermore, even after the negotiation work was completed, they oriented to negotiated rules through policing their own utterances (i.e. self-policing). Overall, this interactional continuum (from other-repairs to self-repairs) brought longitudinal evidence to bear on the role of NoM in the development of L2 interactional competence. These findings bring new insights into NoM, technology-mediated task-based language teaching (TBLT), and CA for second language acquisition (SLA).

scholarly journals The Role of Political Discourse in Conflict Transformation: Evidence from Northern Ireland

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katy Hayward
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Vital Resource

This article introduces this volume by constructing a model for analysing political discourse as an instrument of conflict and peace, drawing on evidence from the Northern Ireland case. It identifies three processes, or stages, in a peace process in which political discourse can play a unique and crucial role: (i) the construction of a (conceptual) framework within which negotiations can take place, (ii) the facilitation of agreement between moderate and extreme positions, and (iii) the forging of common ground. The motivating thesis of this research is that discourse analysis is a vital resource for deepening our knowledge of why, how and when violence can erupt and peace can be built.

scholarly journals Repositioning news and public connection in everyday life: a user-oriented perspective on inclusiveness, engagement, relevance, and constructiveness

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 902-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joëlle Swart ◽  
Chris Peters ◽  
Marcel Broersma
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
News Media ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
The Public

News has traditionally served as a common ground, enabling people to connect to others and engage with the public issues they encounter in everyday life. This article revisits these theoretical debates about mediated public connection within the context of a digitalized news media landscape. While academic discussions surrounding these shifts are often explored in terms of normative ideals ascribed to political systems or civic cultures, we propose to reposition the debate by departing from the practices and preferences of the news user instead. Therefore, we deconstruct and translate the concept of public connection into four dimensions that emphasize people’s lived experiences: inclusiveness, engagement, relevance, and constructiveness. Situating these in an everyday life framework, this article advances a user-based perspective that considers the role of news for people in digital societies. Accordingly, it offers a conceptual framework that aims to encapsulate how news becomes meaningful, rather than why it should be.

Putting the Madhyamaka Trick in Context: A Contextualist Reading of Huntington’s Interpretation of Madhyamaka

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-124
Author(s):  
Michael Dorfman
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Correspondence Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rational Analysis ◽  
At Command ◽  
Rational Argumentation ◽  
Logical Fallacies ◽  
Key Terms

In a series of works published over a period of twenty five years, C.W. Huntington, Jr. has developed a provocative and radical reading of Madhyamaka (particularly Early Indian Madhyamaka) inspired by ‘the insights of post- Wittgensteinian pragmatism and deconstruction’ (1993, 9). This article examines the body of Huntington’s work through the filter of his seminal 2007 publication, ‘The Nature of the M?dhyamika Trick’, a polemic aimed at a quartet of other recent commentators on Madhyamaka (Robinson, Hayes, Tillemans and Garfield) who attempt ‘to read N?g?rjuna through the lens of modern symbolic logic’ (2007, 103), a project which is the ‘end result of a long and complex scholastic enterprise … [which] can be traced backwards from contemporary academic discourse to fifteenth century Tibet, and from there into India’ (2007, 111) and which Huntington sees as distorting the Madhyamaka project which was not aimed at ‘command[ing] assent to a set of rationally grounded doctrines, tenets, or true conclusions’ (2007, 129). This article begins by explicating some disparate strands found in Huntington’s work, which I connect under a radicalized notion of ‘context’. These strands consist of a contextualist/pragmatic theory of truth (as opposed to a correspondence theory of truth), a contextualist epistemology (as opposed to one relying on foundationalist epistemic warrants), and a contextualist ontology where entities are viewed as necessarily relational (as opposed to possessing a context-independent essence.) I then use these linked theories to find fault with Huntington’s own readings of Candrak?rti and N?g?rjuna, arguing that Huntington misreads the semantic context of certain key terms (tarka, d???i, pak?a and pratijñ?) and fails to follow the implications of N?g?rjuna and Candrak?rti’s reliance on the role of the pram??as in constituting conventional reality. Thus, I find that Huntington’s imputation of a rejection of logic and rational argumentation to N?g?rjuna and Candrak?rti is unwarranted. Finally, I offer alternate readings of the four contemporary commentators selected by Huntington, using the conceptual apparatus developed earlier to dismiss Robinson’s and Hayes’s view of N?g?rjuna as a charlatan relying on logical fallacies, and to find common ground between Huntington’s project and the view of N?g?rjuna developed by Tillemans and Garfield as a thinker committed using reason to reach, through rational analysis, ‘the limits of thought.’

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