5.9 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conversation theory | 2/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_theory | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:11:08.773848+00:00 | kb-cron |
The object language
L
{\displaystyle L}
differs from most formal languages, by virtue of being "a command and question language[,] not an assertoric language like [a] predicate calculus". It priorities the sematic and pragmatic aspects of language rather than the syntactical features of propositions and their corresponding truth or falsity values. It is often formally illustrated and embodied in the form of a conversational skeleton within conversation theory, which forms the basic unit of a conversational interactions between a collection of conversational participants
Z
=
⟨
A
,
B
⟩
{\displaystyle Z=\langle A,B\rangle }
. This unit is contextualized as an extended learning system whose internal states are changed and modulated through the course of the conversation. Since conversation theory specifically focuses on learning and development within agents capable of cognition and conversation, the object language is separated into two distinct modes of conversing; a likeness of which, resembles the distinction between procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge in epistemology. Firstly, there is conversation which happens at the level of
L
0
{\displaystyle L^{0}}
of an object language, which is concerned with "how to “do” a topic: how to recognize it, construct it, maintain it and so on". Meanwhile, the
L
1
{\displaystyle L^{1}}
level of an object language is "concerned with explaining or justifying what a topic means in terms of other topics". This is expressed by the ordered-pair
L
=
⟨
L
0
,
L
1
⟩
{\displaystyle L=\langle L^{0},L^{1}\rangle }
. The conversational architecture which embodies an object language consists of the following components: Firstly, there are topic relations which may be discussed; secondly, there are speech-acts or descriptions that may be used to converse about said topics; thirdly, a series of procedural repertoires which act to modulate conversational and activity-based input and outputs, and finally a modelling facility whereby conversational participants may collaboratively build working models of a topic with each other. These components—when put together in the form of a conversational skeleton—provide the most basic unit of conversation within conversation theory.
==== Command and Question Language ==== The object language is also a language of commands and questions within conversation theory. In essence, this framing merely highlights another modality of the object language: One that frames the object language in terms of the type of speech acts that may be used when enacting different levels of itself. In a conversation between
A
{\displaystyle A}
and
B
{\displaystyle B}
, if the later participant acknowledges the former participant's statements of intent as corresponding to a command or question if they view that behaviour as legal within the confines of the conversational interaction. On level
L
0
{\displaystyle L^{0}}
of the command and question language, the use of both commands and questions are active: Commands at this level are intended to direct the recipient to act in ways that may generate solutions to a problem, while the use of questions is intended to generate explanations from the recipient regarding what they are doing in a given activity. On level
L
1
{\displaystyle L^{1}}
of the language meanwhile, the use of both commands and questions are reflective: The intent of commands is to get the recipient to construct a model that describes what they have done, while the use of questions is intended to get the recipient to provide a step-by-step explanation as to how it was solved and to check if any errors of incompatible relations occurred in the construction of the model. There are three basic conversational transaction types within the language, which include: Commands, questions, and explanations. There also exist cognitive procedures simply known as executions. Such cognitive procedures operate and are enacted upon a modelling facility, which may allow conversational participants to co-design via the synthesis of partial models and some working model. Meanwhile, if such cognitive procedures are to be converted to a speech-act or description
D
{\displaystyle D}
of some topic relation, then such an utterance would also be composed of linguistic expressions that help compose its sense. Below is a table of operation types that may be enacted within a conversational interaction:
The operations are characterised above as either (i) conversational transactions which are used to induce conceptualisation, or (ii) cognitive procedures which enact conceptualisation procedures so that the contents of such conceptualisation can be applied in the form of some speech-act or utterance. Both conversational transactions and cognitive procedures have transformational structures that are intended by a conversational participant to induce a given behaviour in the other.