MODELING COMMUNICATIVE ACTS

IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS

by * Goran Goldkuhl

Abstract: An analysis is made on the concept of communica- tive action as described in speech act theory and universal- pragmatic theory. The need to consider communicative action in information system modeling and information requirements analysis is investigated. Following the purpose of having organisationally effective information systems, an interde- pendence is identified between intersubjective understanding of information system rules and a rational communication through an information system. A basic claim, in the paper, is that communicative acts modeling must be an important part of informatTon requirements analysis. Different aspects of communicative acts (in relation to information systems) are analysed: Prepositional contents, performative functions, communicative effects, communicative agents, conversation structure, activity context. A small example with modeling techniques are presented for illustrative purpose.

Paper for the TIMS XXVI International Meeting, Copenhagen, June 17-21, 1984.

Session: Values and users in information systems development.

This work is part of a research project financically support- ed by The National Swedish Board for Technical Development.

* Human-Infological Research Group, Department of informa- tion processing, Chalmers University of Technology, S-412 96 Gateborg, Sweden.

1 Introduction

During the information systems development process (ISD)

one must model different aspects of the information system

(IS) and its context. There can be many different aspects

to mode1.A limited number of aspects are usually modelled

during an ISD process. All possible aspects cannot be

modelled due to resource restrictions; which is a general

critera for efficiency in ISD processes. The aspects modelled

are chosen according to some perspective and vdues. The

perspective gives priority to certain aspects.

The purpose of this paper is to study the concept of

communicative action and its relation to information systems.

I shall investigate communicative action and if this concept

is useful when modelling information systems.

I will treat the following issues (in the noted order):

- What is a communicative act? - Why model communicative acts in information systems?

- What aspects of communicative acts to model in ISD? - How to model communicative in information systems?

2 What is a communicatfve act?

When I talk about communication here, I mean human communlr=.at&on

using language as a medium. I am taking the following

situation as a paradigm for my discussion: One person saying

something to another person (fig. 2.1)

Figure 2.1

Communication involves always a sender/speaker and a

receiver/hearer. ) Communication consists of two human

processes: A sender expressing something (a message) and

a receiver interpreting the message. The sender performs

a communicative act. The receiver interpretes the linguistic

expression, i.e. he reconstructs the intended message.

A communicative act consists of different components:

Syntactical, propositional, performative and intentional.

I am here following speech act theory of Austin (1962) and

Searle (1969, 1979) and universal-pragmatic theory of Habermas

(1979) (also described in McCarthy, 1979). I have made some

minor conceptual and terminological changes.

The difference between the propositional and performative

(illocutionary) levels is very important and this is one

of the main ideas of the theories (mentioned above). These

two aspects make the double nature of human speech (Habermas,

1979) . When one says something: 1) one expresses a cognitive content, i.e. one refer and

predicate (propositional level) and 2 ) one perf orms something

i.e. establishing an interpersonal relationship (performative

level). The double nature of human speech means a cognitive

and interactive use of language. The propositional content

and the performative force can vary independently of each

other. One example:

I "Sam . writes the program.

I1 "Write the program, Sarn!'!

111 "Does Sam write the program?"

IV Sam: "I shall write the program".

1) One person saying something to hiinself is a (very) special case of communication.

All four utterances h a w the same propositional.content

(reference = "Sam"; predication = "writes the program") . There are, however, different performative functions:

Assertive (I) , directive (11) , question (111) and comissive (IV) . This means that what is talked about is the same in all four utterances, but different types of

interpersonal relationships are established between sender

and receiver through the communicative act.

One of the main thesis in speech act theory is this

distinction between the propositional and the illocutionary

(performative) level. Anot3er main thesis in this theory is

the difference between the illocutionary and perlocutionary

levels, A speech act may have different (perlocutionary)

effects as e g convincing, persuading the hearer. The

distinction between illocutionary force and perlocutionary

effect of a speech act is a very important contribution

since it clarifies the pragmatic dimension of language and

communication. The illocutionary level builds on linguistic

rules ) (of pragmatic character) but the perlocutionary

builds on extra-linguistic aspects. This means a division of

the pragmatic-linguistic dimension into universal ( = illocu-

tionary/performative functions) vs empirical-contingent

( = perlocutionary effects) aspects (Habermas, 1979). Although

I find this distinction clarifying, I conceive it in one

respect obscure.How does the intentionality of human action

fit into this schema? Different interpretions are possible.

Is intentionality mainly connected with the illocutionary or

the perlocutionary level? Following social action theory

(eg Schutz, 7970) I define intention (=in-order-to-motive)

as the effects aimed at when performing the act. This means

that I define the perlocutionary level as the intention of

1) Communicative action is rule-governed behavior, where the rules are of different kinds (syntactical, propositional, illocutionary) .

the communicative act l ) . Sometimes in discussions about

speech act theory the illucutionary force is made equal

to the intention of the speech act. I do think this is an

erroneous characterization. The intention of a communicative

act is accomplished through the propositional content and

the illocutionary force. The proposition and the illocution are

instrumental in relation to the intention of the act.

I think that the confusion about the speech act intentions

partly depends on that in some kind of speech acts (of certain

illocutionary types) the intentions are very clear and obvious.

When putting a question the intention is that the hearer

should respond. When making a command the intention is that

the hearer should perform the act predicated (in the

proposition of the speech act). In these types of speech

acts the sentence mood (interrogative and imperative) clearly

shows the type of intention. In other types of speech acts,

as eg constatives (assertives) the intention is not

inherent in the illocutionary force. Some types of utterances

have in their linguistic structure been restricted concerning

their intended effects (eg questions, directives). Other

types (as eg constatives) are open in their intentions. The

intentions do not appear from the linguistic structure of

the utterance. This kind of speech acts is often performed

in an argumentative discourse. Both kinds of speech acts

(directives vs constatives) have a communicative purpose.

The intentions of directives are reflected in the linguistic

rules (both on syntactical and illocutionary levels), which

is not the case with constatives. In commands, requests,

questions and some other types of speech acts the desired

effects have been linguistically conventionalized and

codified in sentence structures. I believe this is the main

reason for the illocutionary/intentional confusion of speech

acts.

l) When talking about (perlocutionary) effects of an act it is of course necessary to distinguish between intended, estimated,actual and un-intended effects. This is, however, not properly made in speech act theory.

I summarize this discussion: Every speech act has a communi-

cative purpose which is the intention of the act. Through

speech acts different kinds of interpersonal relationships are

established between sender and receiver. This is made through

the illocutionary force of the speech act. In some type of

speech acts the intentions are clear from the illocutionary

force (i.e. clearly expressed in the utterance) but in other

cases they are not.

The purpose of this section was to investigate the concept

of communicative act. This analysis will serve as a basis for

the succeeding sections where I will investigate if this

concept is important and useful in modeling information systems.

3 Why model communicative acts in information systems?

I will start this discussion with putting up some main

objectives behind using (computer-based) information systems

for management and administration in organisations. The

purpose of an IS is to support effective organisational

action. An IS should (through produced messages) influence

some actors (IS-users) and their action. The IS-messages

should through interpretation and understanding processes

enable or improve some action.

The produced messages are a function of the input messages

and the IS rules. These are the results of two different kinds

of formulation processes:

1) The continuous formulation of input messages and

2) the specification of the information system requirements.

These requirements are rules for what kind of messages are

allowed in the system and the kind of processing activities

(inferencing) .

During the determination of information requirements some

people are creating prerequisites for an effective IS use.

The contents, structure and function of an IS should be

determined with regard to the desired action effects. In

figure 3.1 I have depicted a principal structure of an

information system.

Figure 3.1 Information system and primary context.

The discussion above implies an identification of three

types of information system actors: Input users, output users,

IS action responsible (the information system "owners").

These are three types of roles, and in some situations - these roles can coincide in one person.

One of my main thesis here is that:

There must be a sufficient degree of intersubjectivity

between the different IS actors on the rule-governed IS

action.

The action inside and outside the information system must

be congruent. A condition for an effective and rational

information system is an intersubjectivity on the IS

concerning what is talked about and what commitments are made.

There is a sometimes implicit validity claim of IS that

we, as users, should make intelligible expressions and

adequate interpretations, This is presupposed in every rational

use of IS.

Based on the discussion abow I am now prepared to present

another main thesis:

Predefining information systems (during information

requirements analysis) should involve model'ligg of

communicative acts,

The communicative act modelling s'nould increase the possibility

of an effective communication in information systems. An

effective communication consists of comprensible,thruthful

and appropriate expressing ) and adequate interpretations

of propositions, illocutions and intentions.

Information systems can be defined as rule-governed inferen-

cing and communicative action, 2' These rules can be said

to represent a social contract (Ciborra, 1984) on IS between

different interest parties. The process of information

requirements analysis (IRQA) is to determine the rules for

this inferencing and communicative action. IRQA is a meta-

communication process with one aim to establish an inter-

subjectivity on IS rules, which then represents a social

contract. This process involves also a development of

communicative competence (Habermas, 1979) of IS users.

Developing communicative competence means reconstructing

and improving rules for communicative action (Goldkuhl &

Lyytinen, 7984).

l) Confer Habermas (1979, p. 2ff) about validity claims in communication.

2) In this paper I am not using the concept 'formal professional languageL. This is, however, a central concept in the language action theory on information systems. Confer Goldkuhl & Eyytinen (?g82 a, '1'984) .

My claim here is that communicative action is an important

and basic aspect to consider when modeliflg; information

systems. I do not claim that it is the only aspect to model.

There are of course many other aspects to consider.

4 Some aspects of communicative acts to consider when modeling information systems

Following theories on communicative action I suggest the

following aspects for information system modeling during

IRQA (regarding communicative acts) :

- Propositional contents (message structure, vocabulary) - Performative functions - Intended communication effects - Communication partners - Relations between different communicative acts (conversations) - Communicative action context

I will go through this six aspects below. In section 5 I will

present some ways for describing these aspects (modeling

techniques) .

Propositional contents of communicative acts in IS are

usually described in many methods/approaches to information

requirements analysis and information modeling. ' ) This is

often done in terms of entities and relationships (eg Chen,

1976; Kent, 1977). Many approaches uses mathematical

(eg Codd, 1970) or logical frameworks (eg Bubenko, 1981) for

describing propostitional contents. These frameworks are,

however, not especially congruent with the language action

theory on IS developed in this and other papers (Goldkuhl &

Lyytinen, 1982 a, b, 1984). Instead I propose a linguisti-

cally based framework described in Lyytinen (1982) and

1) For an overview confer e g Kerschberg et a1 (1'976) and Lindencrona-Ohlin (1979) .

Goldkuhl & Lyytinen (1982b). The propositional contents

is described as predicative structures (message structures).

Messages are divided into two parts: One talked about

(theme/reference) and one part as a comment (rheme/

predication) . l ) The propositions uses a vocabulary of the IS. A propositional analysis must involve on analysis of this

vocabulary i e terminology and concepts. Definition of

concepts can be done with regard to intension and extension

(ibid.) .

Propositional contents are, as mentioned above, often

treated in many methods; anyhow not in a proper linguistically

way. The other five aspects (of communicative acts) are,

however, more seldom considered in many methods.

While,usually, the propositional contents of IS communicative

acts are described explicitly,the performative functions are

treated &plicitly, or not at all. Input/output information

can sometimes be characterized as "question ....", "...*. order", "report on ...,.", etc. The performative function is in this way only mentioned or understood

implicitly, but not explicitly desck5bd.d. 1'0,ne way of treating

the performative aspect of communicative acts is to

characterize the illocutions according to some scheme. In

speech act theory there exists some taxonomies of illocutions;

a preliminary one in Austin (1 962) and a more elaborated one

in Searle ( 1 979) .2) Searle identifies five basic illocutionary

types into which, he claims, all illocutions can be grouped:

- Assertives (state, believe, claim, predict, etc.)

- Comissives (promise, intend, obligate, etc.)

- Directives (command, request, question, etc.)

- Declaratives (appoint, sentence, declare, etc.)

- Expressives (thank, welcome, apologize, etc.)

1) It is also possible to characterize the message types according to different basic predicative schemes (Lyytinen, 1982).

2) Confer also Habermas (1979) and WetterstriSm (1977).

I th ink t h a t t h i s list i,s -.nkibher exhaust ive- .nor: . s u f f i c i e n t l y

d e t a i l e d f o r character iz:at i .on of , information system a c t s .

I p resen t a more comprehensive l i s t , which should be u s e f u l

a t l e a s t i n t h e IS a r e a , My taxonomy buFlds on S e a r l e t s .

I n pa ren thes i s I have expressed "prototype i l l u c o t i o n s R .

Reports

- c e r t a l n

- unc,er tain

P r e d i c t i a n s

e Comissives ]Tingle7 - - . .

Contrac ts - /mutual corniss~ve'r - Direc t ives

- commands

- r eques t s

Ques t ions

Declara t ive

Regulat ives - / a i r e c t i v e - d e c l a r a t i v e 7 - m Expressives

0 Character izat i .ons

Preferences

( f s t a t e ~ c l a i m )

[I- bel ieve)

( X f o r e c a s t )

(I promi.se)

( W e agree)

( I command)

( I reques t )

(I ask)

( Z d e c l a r e )

( X i s sue /p resc r ibe )

('I express)

( 3 def ine)

( I wish/pref e r )

The d i f f e r e n t communicative a c t s of an I S ( input /output

messages) can be cha rac te r i zed according t o t h i s taxonomy.

The intended communication e f f e c t s of an I S a r e t h e a c t s

performed by t h e ou tpu t use r s . The a c t s can be dec i s ions ,

o t h e r communicative a c t s o r m a t e r i a l a c t s . It should be

recognized t h a t IS ou tpu t s a r e very seldom t h e only b a s i s

f o r t h e u s e r ' s action.. They use , a l s o , o t h e r informat-&m

sources.

The communication purpose ( t h e intended e f f e c t s ) can be

descr ibed i n t e r m s of " Tot know^,^^. < something) i n order t o

<perform a c t s > " .

I n s e c t i o n 3 above I i d e n t i f i e d t h r e e t y p e s of I S a c t o r s

( I S r o l e s ) . These a r e groups d i r e c t l y r e l a t e d t o t h e IS .

I would add ano the r group: The I S c l i e n t s . What i s done

i n t h e IS and i t s sur roundings h a s u s u a l l y a purpose t o

s e r v e ano the r group o u t s i d e . I c a l l t h i s k ind of group t h e

c l i e n t s o f t h e IS a c t i v i t y . The c l i e n t s can be i n s i d e o r

o u t s i d e t h e o r g a n i s a t i o n s . Typica l examples of o u t s i d e c l i e n t s

are customers, p a t i e n t s , tax-payers . I t h i n k t h a t sometimes

o u t p u t u s e r s and c l i e n t s can co inc ide .

The i n p u t u s e r s can sometimes on ly be media t ing something

t h a t h a s a l r e a d y be s a i d by someone else. Therefore it is

important t o i d e n t i f y t h e r e a l fo rmula to r s o f t h e i n p u t

communicative a c t s , b e s i d e s t h e media tors .

I n t h e language a c t i o n theo ry on in format ion system, such

systems a r e de f ined a s rule-governed i n f e r e n c i n g and

communicative a c t i o n . Th i s means t h a t a c t i o n i s performed

in / th rough an in fo rma t ion system. These a c t s a r e of course

human, b u t o n l y r e a l i z e d by means of t e c h n i c a l a i d s

(computers) . Someone i s ( o r should a t l e a s t be ) r e s p o n s i b l e

f o r t h e a c t i o n performed i n an I S , It is n o t s e n s i b l e t o

accuse computers f o r i n a p p r o p r i a t e I S a c t i o n . The a c t i o n

r e s p o n s i b l e are t h o s e w i th power t o fo rmula t e and r e fo rmula t e

t h e I S r u l e s .

Through t h i s a n a l y s i s I have come o u t w i th an e l a b o r a t e d IS

u s e r concept . I do n o t t h i n k it is s u f f i c i e n t t o t a l k about

u s e r s i n an u n s p e c i f i c way. I propose t h e fo l lowing t y p e s

of IS a c t o r s :

1) This i s t h e problem of I S r e i f i c a t i o n , which is t r e a t e d i n Goldkuhl & Lyyt inen (T982a) .

- IS input users (formulators, mediators) - IS output users - IS action responsible - IS clients

Identification and characterization (according to these

scheme) of different (groups of) actors should be done

during IRQA.

The rules for propositional contents and performative

functions are rules for single communicative acts. There

exist also rules for combinations of communicative acts.

Communicative acts of an IS and its surroundings form to-

gether-a coherent structure. There are rules for how these

communicative acts relate to each other as an institutionalized

action pattern. These different communicative acts form

together a "conversation". A conversation is constituted not

only by rules for each communicative act, but also by rules

which interrelate communicative acts. It is not possible to

reconstruct and understand the communicative rules of an IS

without relating to rules in other activities. The

communicative acts of an IS are usually only part of a

larger conversation context,

Rules for interrelating communicative acts are described as

conversation rules:

- Initiations - Sequences - Alternatives - Con junctions - Iterations - Terminations

When modeling conversations, we are describing parts of IS

context. A more exhaustive contextual description has to

made also, including different surrounding activities.

5 How to model communicative acts in information systems

In section 4 above I have described some aspects of

communicative acts to model during IRQA. I will make my

presentation here more concrete by giving examples of how to

model these aspects. The purpuse of this section is, thus,

to illustrate communicative acts modeling. I will do this,

by using parts of the information requirements analysis method

SIM l) (Goldkuhl, 1983; Goldkuhl & Lyytinen 1982b, 1984) .

I will use a simple example of order processing. 1 start with

a::de.scriptbbn'of the information system in context. This is 2) described in an A-graph (Figure 5.1). Besides the order

processing system three other activities are described:

Stock-keeping, invoicing and sales planning. By this graph

we can identify the communicative acts (inputs and outputs)

of the IS and also to get an understanding of this IS in

relation to its surrounding.

From the A-graph it is not possible to elicit the conversation

structure. Only the principal relations between the activities

are depicted. The detailed relations between the communicative

acts are depicted in a conversation diagram (figure 5.2; a

legend is found in appendix 2).

Different communicative agents are identified in figure 5.3.

In figure 5.4 the communicative acts are classified according

to the taxonomy presented in section 4. Some acts involve

several performative functions as can be seen from the table.

1) SIM stands for Speech act based Information system Methodology.

2) 1 an using A-graph-technique f ron Lundeberg et a1 ( 198 1) , but with a different interpretation of the symbols, confer appendix t .

Figure 5.1 :A-graph

or o r d e r c o n f i r r n a t i o n L- 1

. -brremai ;ng ordef -, or - s h i p p i n g n o t e l 4

1 S h o r t a g e n o t e --P D e l i v e r y c a n c e l l a t i o n --{I [E d e l i v e r y pos tponment

d e l i v e r y n o t e ---4 L= r and s h i p p i n g s l i p :-i I- and i n v o i c e b a s i s L- l

payment -note .-41 ly or n o payment -note L- 7

L>r i n v o i c e c l a i m

or d i s t r a i n t c l a i m . ' L- " 11

Figure .5.2 Conversati0.n diagram

Information svstem: Order ~rocessina

! l

j Input messages Input users I

l 1 Orders

I

i Customers i 1 Changes in stock i Stock I

l

l 1 Payment neglects i Invoice dep. !

i l Output messages , Output users

l

Order confirmation

Delivery postponement l

Order rejection I

Delivery cancellation

Shipping note

Customers

Customers

Customers

Customers

Stock

Order statistics 1 Sales planning

Action responsible: Order dep.

Clients: Customers

Figure 5.3 Information system actors

Figure 5.4 Performative functions

Communicative acts

In figure 5.5 some intended effects are explicated concerning

the communicative act 'order statistics'. The contributions

of some elementary parts of this act are described.

, Type of performative function I

i

1 Orders Request I I i Shipping note I Command I

i Order confirmation 1 Commissipe 1 Delivery postponement Non-commissive; Commissiye I

l l Order rejection Non-commissive l

l

Delivery cancellation ; Non-commissiye l

Order statistics 1 Report, certain l

Changes in stock l l

Report, certain

Invoice basis 1 I Report, certain l

Payment notes I Report, certain l

Invoice Command

Invoice claim I Command

Distraint claim ' Request I I Payment neglects I Report, certain

I j Market investigation Report ,cert.,uncertain; Prediction 1. l I 1 Sales plans Commissiue; Request; Prediction I l

- Q u a n t i t y s o l d i n p e r c e n t

(Produc t , s a l e s u n i t , p e r i o d

ELEMENTARY COMMUNICATIVE ACTS

- S a l e s u n i t ( D i s t r i c t )

EFFECT

- T o t a l q u a n t i t y s o l d

(Product , d i s t r i c t , p e r i o d )

To know t h e s a l e s s h a r e s 1 I

of a p roduc t i n o r d e r t o

move products- in-s tock j

l between sales u n i t s o r where ;

t o have s a l e s campaigns.

To know which s a l e s u n i t s

t h e r e are w i t h i n one d i s t r i c i 7 i n o r d e r t o make adequate

comparisons.

T o know t h e t o t a l q u a n t i t y

s o l d o f a product ( i n a

d i s t r i c t ) i n o r d e r t o

e v a l u a t e and dec ide whether

it i s worth making a c t i o n s

f o r t h e produc t .

F igu re 5.5 Communicative e f f e c t s

I n f i g u r e 5.5 t h e e lementary communicative a c t s a r e

desc r ibed r ega rd ing t h e i r p r o p o s i t i o n a l c o n t e n t s . The

fo l lowing n o t a t i o n i s used f o r d e s c r i b i n g t h e message

s t r u c t u r e (on t y p e l e v e l ) :

- < P r e d i c a t e > (< s u b j e c t '> . . . . )

I n f i g u r e 5.6 I show a l e x i c a l t a b l e . The purpose of t h i s

t a b l e i s t o d i s c l o s e d i f f e r e n t meanings ( i n d i f f e r e n t

a c t i v i t i e s ) of a used word, ' cus tomer ' . The meaning of

t h i s word i s d i f f e r e n t i n t h e f o u r a c t i v i t i e s . This i s due

t o t h e d i f f e r e n t n a t u r e s of t h e a c t i v i t i e s ( i nvo lv ing

d i f f e r e n t needs , language u s e s and c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n s ) .

One can say that the word customer is used in different

language games (Wittgenstein, 1.958; Apel, T967) . 9 The purpose here is not standardize and enforce one meaning

of the word in all activities (which would be an

'enterprise schema approach ') 2, . The purpose is, instead,

to reconstruct and explicate different meanings used in

order to make a rational communication between different

actor groups more possible.

Figure 5.6 Lexical table for disclosure of different

meanings.

P L

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organisa- ~qord: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

tional Customer

1) About the concept of language games in information systems theory confer Goldkuhl & Lyytinen (1982a, b).

activity . . . . . .

Order

.processing . . . . . . . .

2) Such an approach is critically examined in Goldkuhl & Lyytinen (1982a), Lyytinen (T983) and Kall (1984).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Units/persons, which [who order goods from

.the.company.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , .

Stock

. . . . . . . . . . .

Places (addresses) to which goods are

delivered.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Invoicing

. . . . . . . . .

Juridical' urii.t responsible for payments

..for delivered.goods.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sales

.planning. . . . . .

L

Units, towards which marketing actions

..are directed,.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I

The main purpose of showing t h i s s imple example w i t h

diagrams and t a b l e w a s t o enhance t h e unders tanding of

communicative a c t s modeling i n IRQA. The purpose w a s

n o t t o p r e s e n t and go i n t o d e t a i l e d d i s c u s s i o n s concerning

d i f f e r e n t f e a t u r e s of modeling t echn iques .

. . . .

6 Conclusion

This paper should be i n t e r p r e t e d as an argumentat ion f o r

cons ide r ing communicative a c t s i n in format ion requirements

a n a l y s i s and in format ion system modeling. I summarize my

d i s c u s s i o n i n t h e fo l lowing cha in of reasoning :

O r g a n i s a t i o n a l e f f e c t i v e a c t i o n

through I S 'support

I S a c t i o n invo lves r a t i o n a l and

u n d i s t o r e d communication

I n t e r ' s u b j e c t i v e ' unders tanding on

the I S communi.cation

Recons t ruc t ing and improving

cornrnuni.cative a c t i o n

Modeling c o r n k n i c a t i v e a c t s du r ing

information r e u i r e m e n t s a n a l y s i s

A communicative a c t i o n approach r e p r e s e n t s a t p r e s e n t a

minor i t y op in ion i n in fo rma t ion systems modeling. There

a r e , however, a growing i n t e r e s t i n communicative a c t s

modeling. Besides myself and my c o l l e g u e s , Winograd (1980) ,

F l o r e s & Ludlow (T980), Bje rknes & Kaasb611 (1983) and

Mathiassen & Andersen (T983) have p re sen ted c o n t r i b u t i o n s

i n t h i s d i r e c t i o n .

In information system modeling most approaches seem to be

either information/data centered or process/flow oriented

(Yao et a1 1980; Bubenko, 1983; Lindgren, 1983). It is,

however, claimed (ibid) that an integration of these two

views are needed.

I have here come up with a communicatLve acts approach

which immediately does not fit into either the information

nor the process approach. Of course it relates through

propositional contents to information and the action character

in it relates to processing/inferencing.

I will expand my argumentation here to that communication

is superior to information and in£ erencing. ) There is no

information without/outside communication. The inferencing

should be interpreted as an argumentative background for

communication. Communication becomes then an overall

perspective that integrates information and process

orientations and aspects (figure 6.1).

Cominunicat ion

Inferencing 1

Figure 6 . t Integration of different aspects/orientations

in information systems.

1) Confer the argumentation in Winograd (1 980) which goes in the same lines.

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Appendix 1 : Legend for -:A-graphs -.

Symbols Meaning

Message used in communication

Physical objects

A combination of physical objects and messages

A communicative act

Use/interpretation of communicated messages

Communication

An instrumental act or material consequences of an instrumental action

Physical objects used in an activity or physi- cal effects influencing on activity.

Activity. A socially institutionalized action pattern.

Appendix 2:

Symbol

AND

4

Legend for conversation diagram

Meaning

Initiation

Sequence

Alternative

rteration

Conjunction

Termination (no succeeding communicative acts)

Termination (of conversation)