Towards a Design Theory of Discourse Strategies for Conversational Agents

Discourse strategies are goal-oriented ways of structuring interaction through language and play a central role in shaping the outcomes of human–conversational agent interaction. The spectrum of possible discourse strategies for conversational agents is broad; they can employ discourse strategies to elicit emotional reactions from users, to manipulate or even deceive users to shape interaction outcomes. This paper proposes a first step toward a design theory for conversational agents that classifies different discourse strategies and explains how they can be orchestrated to achieve stakeholder goals. The design theory is developed through a process of research synthesis building on Habermas’s theory of communicative action and other prior research. The theory comprises design principles for five discourse strategies - instrumental, strategic, expressive, normative, and communicative action - together with an overarching orchestration principle, contributing prescriptive design knowledge for conversational agents.