Map_Task

Map Task Coding Manual

General remarks:
Semantic/pragmatic coding model, apparently not intended for automatic coding or maybe a pre-stage to find criteria for automated annotation/coding.

Coding system presents some problems if use as a corpus were intended, as for example speaker overlap is coded with symbols representing parts of SGML/HTML tags:

GIVER:
	< Okay, I want you /
FOLLOWER:
	Just below here.
GIVER:
	to get to the concealed hideout. >

Furthermore it contains some redundancy, which, however, could easily be eliminated:

"If it's the first time that the participants are working on that part of the route, write 'normal' after the numbers
eg start (1, 2) normal"

Here, it would make more sense to only indicate deviant information, such as backtracking

1. Introduction

- two dialogue participants; one, with a more detailed map, has to help the other to complete his/hers.
- variability in the setup according to familiarity of the participants, whether participants could use non-verbal communication; "[…] variation in matching between landmarks on the participants' maps, in opportunities for contrastive stress, and in phonological characteristics of landmark names."

Levels of transcription:

- "At the highest level, dialogues are divided into transactions, which are subdialogues that accomplish one major step in the participants' plan for achieving the task."

- "Transactions are made up of conversational games, which are often also called dialogue games […], interactions [..], or exchanges […].All forms of conversational games embody the observation that, by and large, questions are followed by answers, statements by acceptance or denial, and so on." These can then again be divided into "initiations" and "responses". "A conversational game is a set of utterances starting with an initiation and encompassing all utterances up until the purpose of the game has been either fulfilled (e.g., the requested information has been transferred) or abandoned."

- Games are hyrarchically structured into "conversational moves":

Move type	Description
Instruct	An instruct move commands the partner to carry out any action other than the one implicit in queries (i.e., ``tell me the answer to this question''). "G'' denotes the instruction giver, the participant who knows the route, and "F'', the instruction follower, the one who is being told the route.
Explain	States information which has not been elicited by the partner. (If the information were elicited, the move would be a response, such as a reply to a question.)
Check	Requests the partner to confirm information
Align	Checks the attention or agreement of the partner, or his readiness for the next move. The purpose of the most common type of align move is for the transferer to know that the information has been successfully transferred, so that they can close that part of the dialogue and move on.
Query-YN	Asks the partner any question which takes a ''yes'' or ''no'' answer and does not count as a check or an align. Quite often questions which serve to focus the attention of the partner on a particular part of the map or which ask for domain or task information where the speaker does not think that information can be inferred from the dialogue context.
Query-W	Any query which is not covered by the other categories. Although most moves classified as query-w are wh-questions, otherwise unclassifiable queries also go in this category.
Acknowledge	An acknowledge move is a verbal response which minimally shows that the speaker has heard the move to which it responds, and often also demonstrates that the move was understood and accepted (verbally acknowledging the utterance, demonstrating an understanding of the utterance by paraphrasing it, and repeating part or all of the utterance verbatim).
Reply-Y	Any reply to any query with a yes-no surface form which means ''yes'', however that is expressed.
Reply-N	A reply to a a query with a yes/no surface form which means ''no''.
Reply-W	Any reply to any type of query which doesn't simply mean ''yes'' or ''no''.
Clarify	A reply to some kind of question in which the speaker tells the partner something over and above what was strictly asked.
Ready	Moves which occur after the close of a dialogue game and prepare the conversation for a new game to be initiated.

The Game Coding Scheme:

"Moves are the building blocks for conversational game structure, which reflects the goal structure of the dialogue."

"There are two important components of any game coding scheme. The first is an identification of the game's purpose. […]The second is some explanation of how games are related to each other."

"Although some natural dialogue is this orderly, much of it is not; participants are free to initiate new games at any time […], and these new games can introduce new purposes rather than serving some purpose which is already present in the dialogue. In addition, natural dialogue participants often fail to make clear to their partners what their goals are. This makes it very difficult to develop a reliable coding scheme for complete game structure. The game coding scheme simplifies these issues to those aspects of embedded structure which are of the most interest. First, the beginning of new games is coded, naming the game's purpose according to the game's initiating move. […] Second, where games end or are abandoned is marked. Finally, games are marked as either occurring at top level or being embedded […]"

The Transaction Coding Scheme:

"Transaction coding gives the subdialogue structure of complete task-oriented dialogues […]"

"The coding system has two components: (1) how route givers divide conveying the route into subtasks and what parts of the dialogue serve each of the subtasks, and (2) what actions the route follower takes and when."

"The basic route giver coding identifies the start and end of each segment and the subdialogue which conveys that route segment. However, map task participants do not always proceed along the route in an orderly fashion; as confusions arise, they often have to return to parts of the route […] In addition, participants occasionally overview an upcoming segment in order to provide a basic context for their partners […]"

"They also sometimes engage in subdialogues which are not relevant to any segment of the route, sometimes about the experimental setup but often nothing at all to do with the task."

"This gives four transaction types: ‘normal’, ‘review’, ‘overview’, and ‘irrelevant’. […] transactions do not appear to nest […]"

Marking the Map:

Start and end points of a transaction are supposed to be marked with crosses on the map.

Marking the Transcript: