A discourse-based approach to human-computer communication

The term 'dialogue' has its origin in the study of human language, where it is regarded primarily as a form of discourse, and hence as a pragmatic-level phenomenon. However, 'dialogue' is nowadays also used to denote humancomputer interaction; and in this field it tends to be described in syntactic rather than in pragmatic terms. But to treat dialogue as though the term had two distinct senses is unsatisfactory and unwarranted. Instead, we show how it is possible to maintain a consistent, discourse-based view of dialogue that encompasses not only interpersonal communication but also multimodal human-computer interaction.