CALL FOR PAPERS
The Fifth International Workshop on the
Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling
-- LAP 2000 --
14 - 16 September 2000, Aachen, Germany
20 years of Language-Action Perspective:
Time to look back - time to move forward
http://www-i5.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/conf/lap2000/
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Important Dates *** NEW DEADLINES ***
Submission of papers 22 May 2000
Submission of posters 19 June 2000
Notification of acceptance 03 July 2000
Submission of final version 01 August 2000
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Objectives
Information technology has seen radical changes in the last two decades with
systems to support cooperation and communication playing an ever-increasing
role. In today's society, communication is present in many different facets,
e.g. face-to-face dialogues, telephone conversations, email messages,
information exchanges of agents. Communication is the key to smooth cooperation.
Individuals working in groups coordinate their actions through communication.
Communication modelling has been studied for more than two decades. Since 1980 a
new paradigm has evolved in the field of information systems which emphasises
the importance of communication in an organisational context: The Language-
Action Perspective (LAP).
LAP was introduced by Winograd, Flores, and Ludlow who stated that human beings
are fundamentally linguistic beings who act through language. It was argued that
language is not only used for exchanging information as in reports, statements
etc. but also to perform actions, e.g. promises, orders, declarations. Two
theories of communication form the theoretical foundations of LAP: Searle's
Theory of Speech Acts and Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action.
The conventional perspective on information systems stresses the contents of
messages rather than the way they are exchanged. For example, data flow diagrams
are used as primary design tools. In contrast, the Language-Action Perspective
emphasises what people do by communicating, how language is used to create a
common basis for communication partners, and how their activities are
coordinated through language. Here, the focus is on the pragmatic aspects of
language, i.e. how language is used in particular contexts to achieve practical
goals such as agreements or mutual understandings. The LAP approach argues that
as social action is mediated through communication, one of the main roles of an
information system should be to support intra- and inter-organisational
communication.
The first prototype of a LAP system "in action" was the Coordinator in the mid-
80s. Since then, there have been many new approaches in the area of LAP, ranging
from process modelling, workflow or document management to formal foundations.
Twenty years of LAP are a good occasion for looking back to the beginnings and
for assessing what has been done in the past. What assumptions are still valid?
What needs to be adapted? More importantly, two decades of LAP are a good reason
to move forward and assess what LAP has to offer for work in current lines of
research such as E-Commerce, intelligent systems, or new system architectures.
Why is LAP more or less appropriate in certain contexts? These are questions
that will be addressed in the workshop.
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Call for Submissions
We encourage submissions concerning all topics related to the Language-Action
Perspective and communication modelling, including (but not limited to) the
following:
* Reassessment of LAP
* Theoretical underpinnings of LAP
* Comparisons of LAP with other theories and approaches
* Practical experiences with LAP
* Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
* E-Commerce
* Intelligent agents
* Systems architectures
* Document Management
* Process Modelling
* Organisational Semiotics
* Formal aspects
* Empirical Modelling
Submissions can have the following forms
* Full research papers should describe innovative and original research in any
of the above or related topics. Submissions are limited to 15 pages.
* Posters should address academic or industrial approaches, including work in
progress, related to the workshop theme. We particularly want to encourage
junior researchers to submit their work in this category. Submissions are
limited to 4 pages.
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Programme Committee
Chair: Mareike Schoop, Aachen University of Technology (Germany)
Jens Allwood, Goeteborg University (Sweden)
Jan Dietz, Delft University of Technology (Netherlands)
Frank Dignum, Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands)
Owen Eriksson, Dalarna University (Sweden)
Goeran Goldkuhl, Linkoeping University(Sweden)
Ronald Lee, Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands)
Jan Ljungberg, Goeteborg University (Sweden)
Kalle Lyytinen, University of Jyvaeskylae (Finland)
Ian McChesney, University of Ulster (UK)
Raul Medina-Mora, Action Technologies (USA)
Wolfgang Prinz, GMD FIT (Germany)
Victor van Reijswoud, Devote (Netherlands)
Carla Simone, University of Turin (Italy)
Yao-Hua Tan, Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands)
James Taylor, University of Montreal (Canada)
Hans Weigand, Tilburg University (Netherlands)
Guy Widdershoven, Maastricht University (Netherlands)
Terry Winograd, Stanford University (USA)
Carson Woo, University of British Columbia (Canada)
Organising Committee
Chair: Christoph Quix, Aachen University of Technology
Irene Wicke, Aachen University of Technology
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Further Information
http://www-i5.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/conf/lap2000/
Enquiries can be made to [log in to unmask]
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