ESSLLI 2008: Computational Dialogue Modelling

ESSLLI 08, Hamburg (Germany)

Lecturers: Jonathan Ginzburg and Raquel Fernández
Course Type: Language and Computation, Advanced
Schedule: 11-15 August 2008, week 2: 14:15-15:45

course description

This course will offer an introduction to the computational study of dialogue---a discipline that provides underpinnings for the design of dialogue systems and for models of human performance in conversational settings. Initially the main phenomena characteristic of dialogue interaction (including dialogue acts and fragments) will be surveyed. We will then use these as a benchmark for describing and evaluating different approaches that have been taken in the design of dialogue systems (including script-, logic-, and information state-based approaches). After this, we will sketch a formal framework that is able to model the various phenomena described earlier, paying special attention to the nature of context and its distribution among the dialogue participants. The final part of the course will give a brief account of some recent significant directions in research on dialogue, covering multi-party and multi-modal dialogue interaction.

references

The following references address some of the topics that will be discussed during the course:

• Jonathan Ginzburg (2008) Semantics for Conversation. Studies in Computational Linguistics, CSLI Publications. Chapters 1-6. (See below)

• Raquel Fernández, Jonathan Ginzburg, and Shalom Lappin (2007) Classifying Non-Sentential Utterances in Dialogue: A Machine Learning Approach. Computational Linguistics, 33(3): 397-427.

• Peter Bohlin, Johan Bos, Staffan Larsson, Ian Lewin, Colin Matheson, and David Milward (1999) Survey of Existing Interactive Systems. TRINDI Deliverable 1.3, University of Gothenburg.

slides

• Lecture 1
• Lecture 2
• Lecture 3
• Lecture 4
• Lecture 5

contact

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us:

raquel.fernandez@stanford.edu

ginzburg@dcs.kcl.ac.uk

Please do not try to register to this twiki---this is not required for the course.

-- RaquelFernandez - 11 August 2008