Understanding pragmatic aspects with social values in web-mediated collaborative systems

Abstract

Various aspects underlying collaborative discussions in web-mediated systems influence the interpretation of exchanged messages, which may prevent participants to better manage, retrieve and explore available content. In this article, we argue that pragmatics and social values play a key role in this scenario, influencing each other. We propose to articulate aspects of pragmatics and values, and conduct four empirical analyses in a real-world case study. We ground our analyses on concepts and methods of Organizational Semiotics. The paper presents an analysis of participants' interaction, a communication analysis based on a framework of illocutions, and a discussion on the shared social values. Our results indicate possible interdependencies between social values and categories of illocutions. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.

Various aspects underlying collaborative discussions in web-mediated systems influence the interpretation of exchanged messages, which may prevent participants to better manage, retrieve and explore available content. In this article, we argue that pragma