20 Questions on Dialogue Act Taxonomies

There is currently a broad interest in dialogue acts and dialogue act taxonomies, and new uses, taxonomies, and standardization efforts continue to be proposed. This paper presents a discussion of issues that must be addressed in order to facilitate the shared understanding and use of taxonomies. The discussion is framed in terms of 20 questions, the answers to which will help make the meanings of taxonomy elements more clear to different communities of users. I INTRODUCTION When engaging in a study related to dialogue pragmatics, a researcher is confronted with a bewildering range of theories and taxonomies of dialogue acts1 to choose from. Moreover, specific deficits in any given theory often

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