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The emergence of Chatbots has attracted many firms to sell their merchandise via chats and bots. Although Chatbots have received tremendous interest, little is understood about how different usage contexts affect Chatbots’ effectiveness in mobile commerce. Due to differences in their nature, not all shopping contexts are suitable for Chatbots. To address this research gap, this study examines how contextual factors (i.e., intrinsic task complexity that embraces shopping task attributes and group shopping environment, and extrinsic task complexity that entails information intensity) affect user perceptions and adoption intentions of Chatbots as recommendation agents in mobile commerce. Applying the lenses of cognitive load theory (CLT) and common ground theory (CGT), we perform an experiment and apply quantitative analytical approaches. The results show that Chatbots are more suitable in the context of one-attribute, information-light, and group-buying tasks, whereas traditional Apps are suitable for multi-attribute, information-intensive, and single-buying scenarios. These findings make important theoretical contributions to the IT adoption literature as well as to CLT and CGT theory by contextualizing the evolving state of Chatbot commerce and providing guidelines for designing better Chatbot user experiences, thereby enhancing user perceptions and adoption intentions.

This article investigates a novel use of much in a construction that has not yet been recognized in the theoretical literature—as in Angry, much?—which we dub ‘expressive much’. Our primary proposal is that expressive much is a shunting operator in the sense of McCready 2010, which targets a gradable predicate and adds a speaker’s evaluative attitude about the degree to which an individual stands out on the relevant scale. In particular, we argue that it does so in a way that allows it to perform an ‘expressive question’, which can be understood as a counterpart to a polar question, but in the expressive meaning dimension. In doing so, we present the first example of a shunting expression in English and provide, based on Gunlogson 2008, a new model of the discourse context that allows us to account for the different ways that expressive and nonexpressive content enters the common ground.

In an ordinary interaction, communicants have various, mostly unconscious goals which reflect their interactional, social and personal needs. In these interactions, people’s minds try to find a balance between reaching these goals and consuming cognitive energy. If a speaker puts too little effort into speech production, she risks not achieving her communicative goals. This is especially typical when the atmosphere is relaxed, a good example of which is family discourse. An analysis of recorded conversations shows that there are certain regular manifestations of risk-taking in family discourse, such as expressing immature thoughts, raising a large variety of topics and overguessing. A substantial amount of risk-taking in family discourse is in one way or another connected with false confidence in the interlocutors’ common ground. Family members know each other well, which results in an overestimation of the similarity of their understanding of words and objects. This attitude leads them to use cryptic, hard-to-comprehend speech. Quick, everyday interactions are mostly automated, and the speakers do not recognise that their speech is full of implicitness and underdeterminacy.

Contrastive rhetoric (CR) has made great contributions to our understanding of L2 writing. Nevertheless, CR has endured countless criticisms over the years, resulting in “reimagined” forms attempting to address many of these criticisms. In doing so, these forms have shaped CR into a collection of complex ideologies that have unnecessarily complicated CR and impeded its efficacy in both research and the classroom. Therefore, to make CR more practicable, it must be decluttered and brought back to its fundamentals. To accomplish this, I look at CR within the theoretical framework of Clark’s (1996) Common Ground (CG) theory, which affixes it to something much more universal and heterogeneous–communication. Essentially, what I postulate here is that when CR is considered in tandem with CG theory, CR is shifted from an ideological theory that fails to take into consideration socially and politically constructed notions of L2 writing to an approach concerned with basic communication principles. When this shift occurs, many of its criticisms can be assuaged and CR can once again become more practical for researchers and an effective tool for teachers to help their students achieve their writing goals.

This article presents a case study on the shifting interaction between clause structure, information structure and discourse organisation in the history of English, as evidenced by the development from Old to Middle English of what we will call discourse particles: discourse-cohesive devices grammaticalised from adverbs. These include the Old English elements þa, þonne, nu, when used in a clause-internal position.We will show that these discourse particles have the following properties: 1) pragmatically: they express the response of the speaker to the context/common ground shared by speaker and hearer, and thus play a pivotal role in common ground management; 2) relation to clause type: the pragmatic meanings of discourse particles are co-determined by the illocutionary force of the clause types in which they occur, including main clause questions, imperatives, hwæt exclamatives, and correlative subclauses; 3) syntactically and information structurally: discourse particles occur in a fixed position in the clause that separates discourse-given from discourse-new information. Discourse particles thus form a subtle lynchpin between pragmatics, discourse management and clause structure.Some particles were lost in the transition to Middle English, but then and now continued to be attested in questions and imperatives, in the same clause-internal position as in OE. Towards the end of the ME period, we see a positional shift to clause-final position, though maintaining the discourse linking character of the particle. This change is due to a syntactic change tightening the use of strict SVO word order and narrowing the use of clause-medial material.

Newcomers often underestimate the challenges of interdisciplinary work and, as a rule, do not spend sufficient time to allow them to overcome differences and create common ground, which in turn leads to frustration, unresolved conflicts, and, in the worst case scenario, discontinued work. The key to successful collaboration is to facilitate the creation of a climate that will stimulate awareness of such challenges. Differing perceptions of quality and credibility among disciplines are major obstacles to successful collaboration. Some of these differences are incommensurably rooted in different epistemologies while other differences are more a question of culture. In the present paper, a framework is proposed which is designed to initiate a process necessary for success. First, the framework is designed to stimulate discussions about quality and credibility, and second it is designed to help separate epistemological differences from differences in culture. The framework takes its point of departure in five questions that deliberately include terms, such as \"sufficiently\", \"coherently\", and \"reliable\", which are unproblematic in a group with shared norms but become increasingly ambiguous as diversity increases. Experience suggest that pondering these questions, alone or in a group, stimulates reflection, leads to increased awareness of one's own perspective, and facilitates dialogue, collaboration, and creation of common ground. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

This article considers claims of Mesman et al. (2017) that sensitive responsiveness as defined by Ainsworth, while not uniformly expressed across cultural contexts, is universal. Evidence presented demonstrates that none of the components of sensitive responsiveness (i.e., which partner takes the lead, whose point of view is primary, and the turn-taking structure of interactions) or warmth are universal. Mesman and colleagues' proposal that sensitive responsiveness is \"providing for infant needs\" is critiqued. Constructs concerning caregiver quality must be embedded within a nexus of cultural logic, including caregiving practices, based on ecologically valid childrearing values and beliefs. Sensitive responsiveness, as defined by Mesman and attachment theorists, is not universal. Attachment theory and cultural or cross-cultural psychology are not built on common ground.

This essay is a short reflection on experimenting and writing. It starts from the assumption that both literary and scholarly writing as well as scientific experimentation share, as productive processes, a common ground structure. In the first part of the essay, I will expose the basic features of experimentation in scientific research by interpreting a key passage of scientist and philosopher of science Michael Polanyi. I will then show, in the second part, that literary and scholarly writing can be described and assessed from the same perspective, although each of them comes with their own material specifications.

Teachers need to update their competence profiles for 21st century challenges. Teaching strategies need to change and so do the competences teachers need to develop so as to empower 21st-century learners. The European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) represents a paradigmatic example of this endeavour, taking stock of these needs. Defining the requirements of education professionals by teacher competence frameworks can serve multiple purposes at different levels in education systems. At the micro level, it can support and guide teachers' practice and continuous professional development. At the meso level of local education governance, it can support the development of school institutions as learning organisations, providing common ground for dialogue, collaboration and reflection in professional communities of practice. At the macro level of quality assurance, it can provide reference standards for initial teacher education, and for education professionals' quality along the career continuum. The European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators was designed to align with institutional and contextual requirements in different countries, whilst remaining open to adaptation and updating. It links teachers' and students' digital competence development, and can be linked to institutional capacity building. At the same time, the framework is generic enough to apply to different educational settings and to allow for adaptation as technological possibilities and constraints evolve.

Leading institutional pedagogies and practices tend to approach increasing international student populations from a deficit-based model, which focuses on the adaptation, acculturation, and assimilation of international students to the dominant host culture. We believe a better approach to improve international and domestic students' interaction is to move to models of mutual engagement. In this article, as practitioners, we explore four common grounds that seem to be producing positive engagements: common experience, cultural celebrations, faith, and common challenges, in which students are encouraged to meaningfully engage with each other as equals in a spirit of mutuality. The resulting discussion explores how each contributes to a culture of collaboration within institutional departments while improving and enriching the interactions between all students.