In this work we focus on classroom discourse. Specifically, we describe an approach to modeling and tracking the classroom verbal interaction between teacher and students. We assume that the evolution of the classroom discourse takes place in a space whose dimensions correspond to specific discourse categories and thus the rate of occurrence of these events can be monitored, categorized and tra...

A correct structural analysis of a discourse is a prerequisite for understanding it. This paper sketches the outline of a discourse grammar which acknowledges several different levels of structure. This gram~nar, the "Dynamic Discourse Model", uses an Augmented Transition Network parsing mechanism to build a representation of the semantics of a discourse in a stepwise fashion, from left to righ...

This paper critically reviews studies that have interpretively invoked communication accommodation theory (CAT) for the study of patient-provider interaction. CAT’s sociolinguistic strategies—approximation, interpretability, interpersonal control, discourse management, and emotional expression—are succinctly introduced and their use in studies of patient-provider interaction discussed. The majo...

In light of a large number of admirable attempts which look at scientific discourse from social, dialogic and interpersonal points of view, the propositions which consider scientific discourse as an interactive endeavor are now well-established. By the force of our social constructivist gyrations, we have developed glimpses of a social, cultural and historical dimension in which the discourse o...

This paper reports on a study of classroom interaction and discourse in privatelyfunded schools serving low-income families in Hyderabad, India. In common with other developing countries, India has seen a proliferation of such schools and yet little systematic study has been made of them. One hundred and thirty eight lessons were analysed using a computerised systematic observation system; a fu...

Discourse relation classification is an important component for automatic discourse parsing and natural language understanding. The performance bottleneck of a discourse parser comes from implicit discourse relations, whose discourse connectives are not overtly present. Explicit discourse connectives can potentially be exploited to collect more training data to collect more data and boost the p...