Activity based Communication Analysis

Jens AllwoodSCCIIL

Cognition and CommunicationUniversity of Gothenburg

Learning and Communication University of Jönköping

Agenda• Why interesting?• Sources of variation in communication• Inspiration - Wittgenstein, Peirce• What is activity based communication analysis (ACA)? Social activity,

Coactivation, Communication• Activity perspectives: Collective – individual, Global – local, Influencing –

influenced• Data base• Describing a social activity from the point of view of communication• Generic properties of language• Activity properties• Degrees of similarity between activities• Taxonomic possibilities• Simultaneous activities• Some conclusions

Why interesting?

• Getting clearer on the nature of language and linguistic variation

Getting a picture of • what communication is typical of a particular

social activity and of • how communication varies between social

activities can be very useful for creating virtual versions of those activities

Kollegium SSKKIISCCIIL Interdisciplinary Center

Sources of variation in culture, communication and language

Mostly they are combined in actual communication

Terms for variation in communication and language

• (Idiolect, dialect, sociolect, language)• Language of children, teen agers, males, females, adults, elderly

Professional, religious, organizational language

• Register,• Genre,• Style,• Activity based communication

Inspiration- Wittgenstein, Peirce

• Wittgenstein, • Peirce• Malinovski• Gardiner

What is activity based communication analysis (ACA)?

• Communication• Coactivation• Social activity

• Should cover Multimodal communication and cognition (culture)

• Several levels of intentionality and awareness

• But today my examples only transcribed vocal verbal utterances

What is communication?

Communication = def. • sharing of old or new factual, emotive and

conative aspects of cognition through • coactivation and coconstruction of content,

information or understanding• as a part of and means for joint social

activities involving coordination, collaboration and/or cooperation

• Often multimodal and interactive

Coactivation• ”coactivation”, referring to basic attunement processes in

communication • involves sharing of resources between production and perception,

making it possible to reuse for perception what has been produced and to reuse for production what has been perceived.

• Face-to-face communication involves a continuous flow of information. This flow can be multidirectional but is at least bidirectional, involving at least one person A, speaking and gesturing, while his/her words and gestures are activating reactions, interpretations and responses from his/her co-communicators. These reactions and responses can be both simultaneous and sequential to A’s communication, forming a multidirectional flow of information between the mainly contributing communicator and the other communicators.

Coactivation

• ”Coactivation”, one of many terms to describe the mutual attunement between participants

on several levels of intentionality and awareness

• low degree of awareness and intentional control, like: synchronization, entrainment, adaptation, priming, imitation, mimicry, echoing, matching, harmonizing, and contagion

• higher levels of awareness and intentional control: alignment, sharing, accommodation, coordination, and conveyance.

SOCIAL ACTIVITY • A social activity is a

(i) coordinated interaction between two or more persons,(ii) oriented to a common purpose which can be (iii) conventionalized (concerning exhibited behavior, expectations and interpretations, use of

artifacts and environment) and often is, (iv) conventionally connected to an already existing linguistic label.

• The first condition alone is necessary and sufficient for something to be a social activity in the

broadest sense. The other conditions give rise to:

• purposeful social activities• conventionalized social activities • linguistically labeled social activities

• Activity Based Communication Analysis works most easily for activities which satisfy all these requirements.

• Activity = collective interaction with a particular function or purpose, often with conventionalized regulated means and roles.

•

Activity perspectives

• Collective (all participants) – individual (single participants),

• Global (entire activity) – local (part of the activity),

• Influencing (purpose/function, roles, artifacts/instruments, social/physical environment) – influenced(features of communication)

Data base - Activity analysis

View of communication as coactivation and sharing in social activities with culture bound functional orientations (1, 5 million words, 1925 speakers, 386 speakers)

GSLC Activity types

Arranged discussions Auction

Bus driver/passenger Church

Consultation Court,

Dinner Discussion

Factory conversation First acquaintance

Formal meeting, Games & play

Hearing, Committee Hotel

Informal conversation Interview

Lecture Market

Meeting Phone

Political debate Retelling of article

Role play Shop

Task-oriented dialogue Therapy

Trade fair Travel agency

TV

Interactive dialog - what kind of activity is it?

• Original (Swedish) English translation• Customer 1 :hup C1: hup• Agent 1: [1 (j)a]1 A1: [1 yeah]1• Customer 2: [1 ö:m]1 // flyg ti(ll) paris C2: [1 uhm]1 // flights to paris• Agent 2: mm ska [2 du ha]2 en returbiljett A2: uhu do [2 you want]2 a return• ticket• Customer 3: [2 ö.(h)]2 C3: [2 u(h)m]2• Customer 4: va sa du C4: what did you say• Agent 3: ska du ha en tur å retur A3: do you want a round trip• Customer 5: ja ö(h) C5: yes uhm• Agent 4: // vi{l}ken månad ska du åka A4: // which month are you going• Customer 6: ja: typ den: ä:{h} tredje fjärde april C6: yes like uhm the third fourth of • [3 nån ]3 gång där så billi{g}t april [3 some]3 time there as cheaply • [4 som möjli{g}t ]4 [4 as possible]4• Agent 5: [3 mm ]3 A5: [3 uhu]3• Agent 6: [4 ja just ]4 de{t} jo / A6: [4 yes exactly]4 well/ I (ha)ve • de{t} ha{r} ja{g} aldri{g} hört / never heard that before/ the cheapest • förr de{t} billi{g}aste vi har e: air we have is air france one thousand • france ettusenåttahundratie / [5 plus ]5 eight hundred and ten/ [5plus]5 air port • flygplatsskatter så du hamnar pÅ: taxes you will pay yeah you can get the • {j}a du kan få exakt vänta ska exact sum wait you will see we will do • du se här vi gö{r} så här / ö:{h} // it like this / u{h}m //• Customer 7: [5 {j}a: ]5 C7: [5 yeah]5

Bus Diver - Passenger• $BD: hej (hi)• $P: kan jag få en påfyllning på den (can I have a refill on it)• $BD: ska vi väl ordna (we will fix that)• $P: vad var det kvar (what was left)• $BD: ska si på det // tjugusex har vi där (will have a look //

twenty six we have there)• $P: m: / ja lika bra att få det (m: / yes might as well have it)• $BD: tar jag resan nu så är de{t} klart (I’ll take the journey now so it

is ok)• $P: javisst vad bra (sure really great)• $BD: varsågod (you are welcome)• $P: tack (thanks)

Reflection

Influencing parameters of activity analysisPurpose, functionRolesArtifacts, instrumentsSocial and physical environment

Examples of quantitative differences between activities

U-types W-types W-tokens w/utterTok/type utters

Tok/typewords

All activities 79580 54540 1457309 12,56 1,46 26,72

Auction 502 1376 28076 52,19 1,07 20,40Bus Driver/Passengers 157 388 1348 7,66 1,12 3,47

Church 82 2177 10234 105,51 1,18 4,70Communication Experiment 1552 1201 10234 6,01 1,64 12,78

Discussion 12661 18052 273317 14,49 1,49 15,14

Formal Meeting 11335 18383 272929 17,12 1,41 14,85

Hearing by Constitutional Committee 96 1388 7046 71,90 1,02 5,08

Hotel 2298 2448 18137 5,58 1,42 7,41

Interview 20996 17962 393907 13,19 1,42 21,93

Lecture 15 2180 14668 916,75 1,07 6,73

Playing Games 1267 1393 8516 5,74 1,17 6,11

Reality TV 309 703 2920 7,62 1,24 4,15Retelling Of Article 98 872 5290 30,40 1,78 6,07

Trade Fair 84 2359 13970 121,48 1,37 5,92

Travel Agency 3497 293939865

7,93 1,44 13,56

Parts of speech max and MinMaximum % Minimum %

Pronoun Therapy (24,03) Retelling of article (18,9)

det, du, jag, den, vi, dom, en, han, man, som det, dom, man, som, jag, den, vad, han, en, vi

Verb Reality TV (22,43) Auction (14,06)

är, har, ska, kommer, var, får, blir, skulle, trorhar, är, hade, ha, vill, går, kommer, får, börja, börjar

Adverb P-Doctor consultation (19,25)

Church (9)

så, här, då, inte, ju, där, nu, lite, när, också så, inte, alltså, då, här, nu, där, också, när, hur

Noun Church (21,8) P-Doctor consultation (9,3)

gud, ord, herre, ande, jesus, herren, kristus, kärlek, världen, anden

gång, år, ögat, sätt, par, tiden, fall, gånger, raden, benet

Conjunction Lecture (9,51) Flea Market (3)

att, och, om, eller, men, som, så, än, utan, medan och, att, men, så, om, eller

Preposition Church (10,6) Playing Games (4,3)

i, till, för, på, av, med, genom, om, från, efter i, på, för, med, till, av, om

Parts of speech max and MinMaximum % Minimum %

Feedback First Acquaintance (10,5) Church (0,72)

ja, m, okej, nä, jaha, jo, precis, nej, va, hja ja

Adjective Communication experiment (9,2)

Travel Agency (2,12)

gul, röd, blå, grön, liten, gula, stor, röda, blåa, gröna

bra, hela, själv, sån, liten, nästa, mycket, kort, billigare, klar

Own Communication Management

Retelling of article (5,44) Trade Fair (0,27)

äh, eh, äm eh, öh

Numeral Auction (17,69) Interview (0,4)

femtio, etthundra, sjuttiofem, tvåhundra, femhundra första, andra, tre, andre, två

Interjection Bus Driver Passenger (2,23) Auction (0,02)

hej, tack, varsågod o

Describing a social activity from the point of view of communication- some possibilities

• Words – morphemes – POS (+ gestures)

• Word collocations (n-grams) (+ multimodal constructions)

• Utterances – contributions (+ prosody, gestures)

• Topics

• Communicative acts (communicative functions)

• Exchange types (inquiries, clarifications, greetings, calls for attention, introductions etc.)

• Activity structure, subactivities

Differences and similarities -Examples of Generic properties of language

(present in all the recorded activities)

• Words

• Collocations

• Utterances

• Topics – semantic fields

Generic Swedish Words occurring at least once in every activity (27 activity types)

Rank Word % in GSLC Rank

1 det (it/that/there) 6.124 1

2 är (am,are, is ) 2.931 2

3 och (and) 2.787 3

4 att (that, to) 2.418 4

5 ja (yes) 2.325 5

6 jag (I) 2.270 6

7 så (so) 2.077 7

8 Som (like, that, which, who)

1.496 8

9 vi (we) 1.484 9

10 har (have, has) 1.464 10

All words are syncategorematic (pronouns, be, have, conjunctions, FB, Logical connectives

One word utterances occurrence in number of activities – No utterance type is generic (in all activities)

(90 % feedback words + greeting & thank you)

Utterance No of Activites %Utterance Utterance No of activities

% Utterance

Ja (yes) 26 6,822 Hm (hm) 17 0,564

M (m) 22 5,215 Okej (ok) 17 0,242

Nej (no) 22 0,409 Jaså (oh) 17 0,197

Jaha ( I see) 20 0,624 Mhm (mhm) 16 0,329

Nä (no) 19 1,207 Hej (hello) 16 0,249

Näe (nope) 19 0,434 Aha (aha) 16 0,158

ja ja (yes yes) 19 0,415 Men (but) 16 0,095

Ha ( I see) 19 0,332 Nähä (oh no) 16 0,078

Jo (yes) 19 0,178 Tack (thanks) 15 0,150

Mm (mm) 18 1,488ja precis (yes precisely) 15 0,099

Jaa (yes) 18 0,758 Precis (precisely) 15 0,078ja just det (yes just that) 18 0,346 m m (m m) 14 0,269

Va (what) 18 0,201

Generic bigrams and trigramsRank Bigram % in GSLC Rank Trigram % in GSLC

1 det är (it/that/there) is/are 1.499 1 Det är ju(it is you know)

0.247

2 är det (are, is ) it/that/there 0.548 2 Att det är(that it is)

0.139

3 att det (that it) 0.412 3 Det är inte(it is not)

0.067

4 är ju (as you know is) 0.338 4    

5 ja det (yes it) 0.326 5    

6 men det (but it) 0.324 6    

7 det var (it was) 0.318 7    

8 det här (this) 0.305 8    

9 och det (and that) 0.271 9    

10 och så (and so) 0.365 10    

All generic bigrams and trigrams have syncategorematic functions as means for initiating or embedding utterances

Topics - Semantic fields• Negation words • Social processes: Family Friends Humans• Affective processes: Positive emotions, Negative emotions: Anxiety, Anger Sadness • Cognitive processes: Insight, Discrepancy, Causation, Tentative, Certainty, Inhibition, Inclusive, Exclusive • Perceptual processes: Seeing Hearing Feeling • Biological processes: Body Health Sexual Ingestion • Relativity: Time Space Motion • Work • Achievement • Home • Religion • Money • Death • Leisure • Strong FB words • Swear words • Vagueness• Hesitation • Assent • Consensus • Det words • En/Ett words • Personal Pronouns: Personal pronouns (1-per): 1st person singular 1st person plural

Personal pronouns (2-per): 2nd person singular 2nd person plural Personal pronouns (3-per) 3rd person singular 3rd person plural

Sin/Sitt Personal pronouns (singular) Personal pronouns (plural)

Semantic fields in activities - most and least popular

Semantic fields

Negation words

Social processes

Family Friends Humans Affective processes

Max Playing Games Meals Meals

First acquaintance Bus D/P Bus D/P

MealsPlaying Games

Playing Games Trade Fair Party Party

PartyFirst acquaintance Church Party Reality TV Reality TV

Therapy Reality TVFirst acquaintance Court Trials

Informal Convers.

Informal Convers.

MinChurch

Factory Convers. Bus D/P Hotel

Retelling Article

Retelling Article

LectureRetelling Article

Factory Convers. Lecture

Factory Convers.

Factory Convers.

AuctionHearing Commit.

Hearing Commit.

Playing Games

Hearing Commit. Bus D/P

Comm. Exp. Comm. Exp.Retelling Article

Retelling Article Comm. Exp. Comm. Exp.

Most popular Semantic fields in activities

ActivitySem field 1

Sem field 2 Sem field 3 Sem field 4 Sem field 5

Auction money causation we

Bus Driver/Passengers

motion inhibition humans seeing You, money

Churchreligion sexual Positive emotions

Communication Experiment

assent

Discussionleisure

Formal Meetingwe

Hearing by Constitutional Committee

sadness

Hotel w. restaurantingestion

Interview death

Lecture achievement

Playing GamesSwear words

Reality TVsexual

Retelling Of Articlehesitation

Trade Fairyou

Travel AgencyMotion

Parts of speech – Maximum & Minimum relative shares

Max % Min % All

Pronouns Therapy (24) Retelling of article (19) 22

verbs Reality TV (22) Auction (14) 19

Adverbs Doctor-patient (19) Church (9) 16

Nouns Church (22) Doctor-patient (10) 12

Conjunctions Lecture (10) Flea market (3) 8

Prepositions Church (11) Playing games (4) 7

Feedback First acquaintance (11) Church (1) 6

Adjectives Communication experiment (9)

Travel agency (2) 4

Own communication management

Retelling of article (5) Trade Fair (0,26) 2

Numerals Auction (18) Interview (0,4) 2

Interjections Bus driver – passenger (2) Auction (0,01) 0,25

Activities - unique properties

• Words

• Collocations

• Utterances

• Topics – semantic fields

Most Unique words

• Auction: numro (number) hundralappen (hundred crown bill), såld (sold)• Bus Driver –Passenger: lågtrafiklinjerna (low traffic lines)• Church: helige (holy), bedja (pray), evangeliet (gospel), bön (prayer)• Doctor – Patient consultation: blodtrycket (blood pressure), tabletterna (tablets), yrseln (nausea)• Court trial: Leander, (name) åklagaren (prosecutor)• TV discussion: livskvalitet (quality of life), Daleus (name)• First acquaintance: Horred (place), kognitionsvetenskap (cognitive science)• Formal meeting: ja (yes), vi (we), a (yeah), nämnden (the committee)• Constitutional committee: ebbe (name), rikspolischefen (national police chief)• Hotel: godafton (good evening), afton (evening), room (room)• Travel agency: Bromma (place), Ängelholm (place), Ryan (air line)

Most unique bigrams• Auction: krone för (crowns for), sigvard åttinie (identification)• Bus Driver – Passenger: se lågtrafiklinjerna (look at the lines with less traffic)• Church: den helige (the holy) , helige ande (holy spirit), ber för (pay for) • Doctor – Patient consultation: en tablett (a pill), till laboratoriet (to the lab) • Court trial: sture and (name) , tyra andersson (name)• TV discussion: lennart daleus (name), rune molin (name) • First acquaintance: asså det (oh that), men asså (but well) • Formal meeting: har nämnden (the committee has), a just (yes

precisely) • Constitutional committee: ebbe carlsson (name), sten heckscher

(name) • Hotel: god afton (good evening), bord sju (table seven), bord fem (table five) • Travel agency: från arlanda (from arlanda), och retur (and return)

Most unique utterances• Auction: trettioett (thirty one), tjugöh (twenty), höganäs (brand name) • Bus Driver – Passenger: högskolan (the university - destination) • Church: ameen (amen) • Doctor – Patient consultation: ja'ha (I see), recept (prescription) • Court trial: erkännes (is admitted), övervakningen (the surveillance) • TV discussion: domnarvet (name), tjaba (well yes) • First acquaintance: filosofi (philosophy), åttioåtta (eighty eight) • Formal meeting: a (yes), varsågoda (please), ha (I see), ordförande

(chairman) • Hotel: godafton (good evening), nydelit (lovely) • Travel agency: juni (june), integrationsprojektet (the integration project)

Degrees of similarity between activities

• Words• Utterances• Topics – semantic fields

Similarities between activities wrt shared words

All activitiesMost % shared words

Least % shared words

Auction Trade Fair 35,01 Church 26,10

Bus Driver/Passengers Therapy 59,29Auction 32,72

ChurchDiscussion 49,62 Auction 26,10

Communication Experiment Shop 53,3 Auction 33,10

Discussion Interview 80,09 Auction 30,41

Formal MeetingDiscussion 78,25 Auction 30,41

Hearing by Constitutional Committee

Court 60,16 Auction 29,47

HotelShop 71,27 Auction 31,37

InterviewDiscussion 80,09 Auction 28,58

LectureDiscussion 65,42 Auction 29,08

Playing GamesMeals 64,70 Auction 30,80

Reality TVMeals 61,48 Auction 29,11

Retelling Of ArticleDiscussion 59,53 Auction 27,90

Trade FairFormal meeting 61,55 Auction 35,01

Travel AgencyShop 67,27 Auction 33,43

The most similar activities in terms of shared words

Discussion Interview 80,09

Discussion Formal Meeting 78,25

Informal Conversation Meals 77,35

Formal Meeting Interview 74,51

Discussion Informal Conversation 73,64

Informal Conversation Shop 73,58

Meals Shop 72,99

Informal Conversation Interview 72,72

Consultation Informal Conversation 72,55

Consultation Meals 71,72

Consultation Therapy 71,44

Formal Meeting Informal Conversation 71,28

Hotel Shop 71,27

Discussion Meals 71,02

Consultation Shop 70,96

Discussion Shop 69,45

Degrees of similarity between 3 activities wrt words

Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity 3 %

Discussion Formal Meeting Interview 40,77

Discussion Informal Conversation Interview 35,80

Discussion Formal Meeting Informal Conversation 34,63

Formal Meeting Informal Conversation Interview 33,79

Discussion Interview Meals 32,64

Informal Conversation Meals Shop 31,96

Discussion Formal Meeting Meals 31,91

Discussion Informal Conversation Meals 31,77

Informal Conversation Interview Meals 31,75

Discussion Interview Shop 31,52

Discussion Formal Meeting Shop 31,32

Formal Meeting Interview Meals 30,74

Consultation Informal Conversation Meals 30,51

Informal Conversation Interview Shop 30,30

Degrees of similarity between activities wrt utterances

Activity 1 Activity 2 % Utterances in common

Discussion Formal Meeting 24,91

Discussion First acquaintance 23,94

Discussion Interview 23,27

Discussion Travel Agency 22,37

Consultation Interview 21,91

Hotel Shop 21,83

Formal Meeting Interview 21,49

First acquaintance Travel Agency 21,43

Discussion Informal Conversation 21,40

Discussion Therapy 21,07

Discussion Retelling Of Article 20,78

Formal Meeting Informal Conversation 20,66

Informal Conversation Interview 20,53

Taxonomic possibilities

• Depends on interest and purpose of classification – what properties are we interested in?

• For example• Men, women, adults, youths, children, region• Social class, ideology (religion), nation, ethnicity• Organization, activity• Can all be used to subclassify each other,

• E.g. activity• French, male, Apple company interviews

Taxonomy of Activities other possibilities

Classification Features (non mutually exclusive)

• 1. Degree of Institutionalization/Professionalization• 2. Degree of conventionalization and ritualization• 3. Degree of formalization• 4. Degree of joint purpose• 5. Existence of clear expectations and a linguistic label• 6. Focus on emotions and attitudes• 7. Kind of purpose (features not mutually exclusive) e.g.

- educational- health- political- administrative- law and order

• 7. Kind of societal sphere- commercial- public non-commercial- private non-commercial

• 8. Individual vs. Collective• 9. One-way vs. Two-way communication

- Single vs. Interactive• 10. Mainly communicative vs. mainly non-communicative

– How do we operationalize the features?

Simultaneous Activities (hybrid activity data)– another difficulty for classification

• 1) Collectively simultaneous social activities.

One or more activity instances of one or more activity types occurring simultaneously in the same situation without any person participating in more than one. • A. One type - two instances (two informal conversations)• B. Two types - two instances (1 flirtation and 1 political discussion) • 2) Individually simultaneous social activities • A. One person - one activity type - 2 instances, e.g. participating in two different conversations

simultaneously. • B. At least two person - two activity types - 2 instances, e.g. participating in flirting & discussion

simultaneously

• 3) Further refinements are possible with regard to type of activity, eg :(i) -mainly communicative (purpose and means)- discussion-mainly non-communicative (non communicative purpose but partly communicative means (fishing) or

coccurring with communication - driving a car and talking) • (ii) one-way - two-way

radio broadcast discussion

Concluding Remarks

• Social activities an interesting and crucial source of communicative variation

• Gives rise to many interesting problems, eg.

What are generic properties of language?What are the communicative properties that are characteristic of a particular activity? What social activities are similar from a communicative point of

view?Taxonomic possibilities – What taxonomy of communicative

activities is useful for what purpose?How should we deal with simultaneous activities?