"Grounding" for Intersubjectivity and Learning
Michael J. Baker, Tia G. B. Hansen, Richard Joiner, David R. Traum · 1998
this paper is to explore the possible contribution of some recent research in the field of Language Sciences for CHAT conceptions of discourse in learning activity. Specifically, we focus on a model developed by H.H. Clark and colleagues (e.g. Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986; Clark & & Schaefer, 1989; Clark & Brennan, 1991), of the phenomenon of grounding. 2 Grounding is the name of the interactive processes by which common ground (mutual understanding) between individuals is constructed and maintained. This is a cognitivist model of communication to the extent that the common ground is viewed as a set of mutual beliefs of conversational participants about the meaning of their utterances during conversation. The reseach presented here orginated in work that was carried out by the authors within the European Science Foundation's Learning in Humans and Machines programme (Task force on