TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mehler, Alexander
A1  - Lücking, Andy
A1  - Weiß, Petra
T1  - A network model of interpersonal alignment in dialog
T2  - Entropy
N2  - In dyadic communication, both interlocutors adapt to each other linguistically, that is, they align interpersonally. In this article, we develop a framework for modeling interpersonal alignment in terms of the structural similarity of the interlocutors’ dialog lexica. This is done by means of so-called two-layer time-aligned network series, that is, a time-adjusted graph model. The graph model is partitioned into two layers, so that the interlocutors’ lexica are captured as subgraphs of an encompassing dialog graph. Each constituent network of the series is updated utterance-wise. Thus, both the inherent bipartition of dyadic conversations and their gradual development are modeled. The notion of alignment is then operationalized within a quantitative model of structure formation based on the mutual information of the subgraphs that represent the interlocutor’s dialog lexica. By adapting and further developing several models of complex network theory, we show that dialog lexica evolve as a novel class of graphs that have not been considered before in the area of complex (linguistic) networks. Additionally, we show that our framework allows for classifying dialogs according to their alignment status. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach to measuring alignment in communication that explores the similarities of graph-like cognitive representations. Keywords: alignment in communication; structural coupling; linguistic networks; graph distance measures; mutual information of graphs; quantitative network analysis
KW  - alignment in communication structural coupling
KW  - linguistic networks graph distance measures
KW  - mutual information of graphs
Y1  - 2011
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/22486
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-113032
SN  - 1099-4300
N1  - (c) 2010 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.
VL  - 12
IS  - 6
SP  - 1440
EP  - 1483
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -