Symbolic Systems Forum - Stanley Peters, Linguistics Department

Stanley Peters, Linguistics Department, "Conversational

Intelligence"

ABSTRACT:

What knowledge and skills do people use in dialogue with other people? They clearly need knowledge of a shared language, and it helps to know something about the topics being discussed. Are additional skills required, ones specific to communication, maybe even particular to communicating in human language? I will sketch reasons for thinking there are, ways of investigating the question further, and some implications of our (still tentative) answer for technology that converses with people.

BIO:

Professor Peters received his S.B. in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963, and has since held numerous academic positions. He spent 17 years at the University of Texas-Austin, four of which were spent as the Chairman of their Department of Linguistics. Since coming to Stanford in 1983, he served as the Director of the Center for the Study of Language and Innovation for from 1987 to 1990, and has been the Chairman of the Department of Linguistics since 1996. His current interests include situation theory, mathematical properties of grammars, and cooperative software.