Artificial Companion for Second Language Conversation: Chatbots Support Practice Using Conversation Analysis

The research described in this book shows that conversation analysis can effectively model dialogue. Specifically, this work shows that the multidisciplinary field of communicative ICALL may greatly benefit from including Conversation Analysis. As a consequence, this research makes several contributions to the related research disciplines, such as conversation analysis, second-language acquisition, computer-mediated communication, and artificial intelligence.

The book will be of value for researchers and engineers in the areas of computational linguistics, intelligent assistants, and conversational interfaces.

Dr. Sviatlana Höhn is a researcher at the University of Luxembourg where she is building a new lab called "Artificial Companions and Chatbots" focusing on the application of conversational interfaces in education and complex technical systems. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Luxembourg in 2016. Originally from Belarus, she qualified to teach German and English as foreign languages in her home town Vitebsk in 2001. She moved to Germany in 2003 to study Computer Science and earned her Master's in Computer Science and Linguistics. She is interested in cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral research related to dialogue systems and interaction. She is engaged in university teaching, specifically addressing 21st century skills in her courses. She spends her free time mostly with her two kids who were 2 and 5 when this book was published.