Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) seek to provide a more natural means of interaction for a user through conversation. ECA build on the dialogue abilities of spoken dialogue systems with the provision of a physical or virtual avatar. The rationale for this Thesis is that an ECA should be able to support a form of conversation capable of understanding both the content and affect of the dialogue and providing a meaningful response. The aim is to examine the cognitive aspects of ECA attempting such conversational dialogue in order to augment the abilities of dialogue management. The focus is on the provision of cognitive functions, outside of dialogue control, for managing the relationship with the user including the user’s emotional state. This will include a definition of conversation and an examination of the cognitive mechanisms that underpin meaningful conversation. The scope of this Thesis considers the development of a Companion ECA, the ‘How Was Your Day’ (HWYD) Companion, which enters into an open conversation with the user about the events of their day at work. The HWYD Companion attempts to positively influence the user’s attitude to these events. The main focus of this Thesis is on the Affective Strategy Module (ASM) which will attend to the information covering these events and the user’s emotional state in order to generate a plan for a narrative response. Within this narrative response the ASM will embed a means of influence acting upon the user’s attitude to the events. The HYWD Companion has contributed to the work on ECA through the provision of a system engaging in conversational dialogue including the affective aspects of such dialogue. This supports open conversation with longer utterances than typical task-oriented dialogue systems and can handle user interruptions. The main work of this Thesis provides a major component of this overall contribution and, in addition, provides a specific contribution of its own with the provision of narrative persuasion.

Cette thèse prend pour objet des situations d’apprentissage guidé du français, en face à face et en dehors de cadres institutionnels, se déroulant dans le contexte multilingue du Luxembourg. Elle décrit et analyse des interactions entre des locuteurs plurilingues adultes dont la première langue est le chinois ou le coréen et des locuteurs plurilingues agissant en tant qu’experts pour la langue française. Plus particulièrement, dans l’optique d’une analyse qualitative des données, ce travail s’efforce d’appliquer les outils de l’analyse conversationnelle d’inspiration plutôt anglo-américaine à une vision didactique de tradition de langue française. Pour ce faire, il est fait appel aux notions de compétence communicative (Hymes 1972), de dramatisation (Goffman 1991) et de rôle social (Cicurel 1988). L’analyse montre que dans des situations d’apprentissage-en-interaction, les apprenants et les experts ont recours à une diversité de ressources interactionnelles liées à des activités de dramatisation : le dialogue-en-situation, la voix, la séquence préfabriquée, la séquentialité discursive, la réparation, la séquence explicative, le récit préenregistré, l’évaluation, le récit enchâssé, l’identité, le récit conversationnel de l’expert, l’interview, le récit conversationnel de l’apprenant et le mode éditeur. Pour conclure, un rapprochement est opéré entre ces activités de dramatisation et la didactique du FLE, à plusieurs niveaux, sous la forme de recommandations suggestions. / The current thesis focuses on guided language learning exchanges in French, in a face-to-face non-institutional setting in the multilingual context of Luxembourg. It describes and analyzes interactions between adult plurilingual speakers whose first language is Chinese or Korean and multilingual speakers acting as experts for the French language. Taking a qualitative analysis approach, our work strives to apply the tools of conversation analysis of a rather Anglo-American origin to a vision of “didactique” corresponding to the French language tradition. To this end, we rely in particular on the notions of communicative competence(Hymes 1972), dramatization (Goffman 1991) and social role (Cicurel 1988). The analysis of learning-in-interaction data shows the enactment of a variety of dramatization-related interactional resources by both learners and experts: the situated dialogue, the voice, the formulaic language, the discursive sequentiality, the repair, the explanatory sequence, the pre-recorded conversational narrative, the evaluation, the embedded narrative, the identity, the conversational narrative of the expert, the interview, the conversational narrative of the learner and the editor mode. A few recommendations-suggestions are proposed in the conclusion, focusing on how these dramatization activities could inform, at different levels, the development of French teaching and learning.