The 16th ArgDiaP Conference
“Argumentation and Corpus Linguistics”
at
 WAW 2018
Warsaw Argumentation Week
September 16, 2018, Warsaw
Pałac Staszica, Nowy Świat 72, room 268 (second floor)

The study of linguistics has been revolutionised in recent years by the availability of computerised corpora containing millions of searchable texts and allowing for the testing of a wide range of theories and hypotheses on the use of language. Argumentation studies are increasingly ready to take advantage of technology in similar ways with the development of argument mining techniques. This event seeks to bring together linguists and argumentation scholars who are interested in the use of corpora, in order that they may share knowledge and experiences and examine the ways in which studies in the two areas may complement each other.

We invite submission of proposals for presentations which aim to unveil practical consequences of theoretical distinctions. Extended abstracts should be submitted by 15 July 2018 (for more information, see below). The full versions of papers from 16th ArgDiaP will be peer-reviewed and published as a special issue of Argumentation journal issue in 2019.
The event is part of Warsaw Argumentation Week WAW 2018 (06-16 September 2018) which also features COMMA 2018, the 7th International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (12-14 Sept). It is co-located with the 1st International Workshop on Methodologies for Research on Rhetoric (MET-RhET) and the 2nd International Workshop on Methodologies for Research on Legal Argumentation (MET-ARG) which will run on Sat, 15th Sept. All ArgDiaP events take place in Warsaw at the Institute for Philosophy & Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFiS PAN).
Title Corpora for Argument Technology
Abstract Argument Technology, and Argument Mining in particular, have enjoyed phenomenal growth over the past decade with significant new results reported in top AI and Computational Linguistics venues, collaborations in new sectors from healthcare to law, and live systems such as a recent application deployed in partnership with the BBC to all secondary schools in the UK. Continued growth in the area is struggling, however, with the need for corpora, and is caught between twin challenges. On the one hand, much argument technology is rooted in the philosophy of argument where empirical methods at scale remain very much the exception. On the other hand, results in argument mining have developed from general NLP techniques — but general NLP has not produced datasets that focus on the vagaries, idiosyncrasies and linguistic sophistication of argumentation. In this talk, I will explore corpora for argument technology, showing the strengths and weaknesses of current collection and annotation techniques, summarising some of the ways they have been used, and showcasing practical applications of the results that they have yielded.
Bonnie Webber, Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation, University of Edinburgh UK

Title Implicit Discourse Relations: More common than thought

Abstract Discourse annotation recorded in the 2008 release of the Penn Discourse TreeBank (Version 2.0, LDC Catalogue number LDC2008T05) and the many shallow discourse parsers that it has been used to train have assumed that discourse relations were either marked explicitly (e.g. by a conjunction or discourse adverbial) or inferrable as Implicit Relations from features of their presumed arguments.

While discourse adverbials can appear on their own, most can also appear with different explicit conjunctions — e.g., “but instead” or “so instead” or “or instead”; “because otherwise” or “but otherwise” or “and otherwise”, etc. This leads to the question whether explicit discourse adverbials (signalling one discourse relation) co-exist with distinct implicit discourse relations, even when appearing on their own.

While discourse relations are only one factor in identifying argument structures (cf. [Stab & Guryevich, 2017]) and only a subset of discourse relations may be relevant to the task [Biran & Rambow, 2011], recognizing implicit discourse relations is known to be challenging, and recognizing that there are more of them than previously thought just increases the challenge.

In this talk, I’ll present two types of evidence that implicit discourse relations co-exist with explicit connectives: (1) Experiments carried out with support from the Nuance Foundation, show that a combination of the properties of explicit connectives, features of their arguments, and the role that the token plays in the discourse, makes available a set of predictable and manipulable discourse relations that hold in the context; and (2) the revised and augmented version of the Penn Discourse TreeBank (Version 3.0) that will be released this Fall provides manual annotation of many (but not all) of the implicit discourse relations that can be inferred along with explicit discourse connectives.

Programme

8.50-9.00 Opening


9:00 – 10:00 Invited speaker. Bonnie Webber: Implicit Discourse Relations: More common than thought
10:00 – 10:30 Jacky Visser and Jean H.M. Wagemans: Annotating Argument Schemes with the Periodic Table of Arguments
10:30 – 11:00 Martin Hinton: Mining Meta-arguments in Online Corpora
11:00 – 11:30 coffee break

11:30 – 12:00 Farshad Badie: Towards World Identification in Description Logics

12:00 – 12:30 Sarah Bourse, Marie Garnier and Saint Dizier Patrick: Investigating Argument Relatedness by Means of Frames
12:30 – 13:00 Mariusz Urbanski and Natalia Żyluk: ‘Why did you ask this question?’ Modelling polar questions processing in information-seeking dialogues
 
13:00 – 15:00 lunch

15:00 – 16:00 Invited speaker. Chris Reed: Corpora for Argument Technology

16:00 – 16:30 coffee break
16:30 – 17:00 Katarzyna Budzynska, Martín Pereira-Fariña, Dominic De Franco, Rory Duthie, Nuria Franco-Guillen, Annette Hautli-Janisz, Janier Mathilde, Marcin Koszowy, Luana Marinho, Elena Musi, Alison Pease, Brian Plüss, Chris Reed and Jacky Visser: Time-constrained Multi-layer Corpus Creation
17:00 – 17:30 Michał Araszkiewicz and Marcin Koszowy: Corpus Analysis of Appeals to Deontic Authority in the Reasoning of the Polish Administrative Courts
17:30 – 18:00 Paweł Łupkowski: Modifying and Rephrasing Questions in Information Seeking Dialogues-Erotetic Reasoning Corpus Study
 
18:00 – 18:10 Conference Closing
Gala dinner is in the evening of the day before the ArgDiaP conference
Saturday, 15th September 19:00 Barka Atalanta Club & Restarant (Bulwar Bohdana Siedleckiego-Grzymały, close to Warsaw mermaid statue)
Proceedings
Important dates

  • Abstract submission deadline (EXTENDED): 06 July 15 July
  • Notification of acceptance: 27 July
  • Camera ready abstracts: 17 August
  • Early registration deadline: 10 August 9 September
  • MET-ARG workshop: 15 September
  • Full paper submission to a special issue of the Argumentation journal: 15 January 15 March 2019
  • Production of the Argumentation journal: December 2019

Submission

Contributors should submit an extended abstract of the paper (maximum 4 pages excluding references) using the format required for the conference programme. Submitted abstracts should give full names and contact details for all authors. Formatting instructions, as well as the style and sample files, are available here:

Abstracts should be submitted in PDF format through our dedicated EasyChair site no later than 15 July 2018:

Submissions will be reviewed by members of the programme committee. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 27 July 2018. At least one author of each accepted abstract must register for the conference.

Participation and registration
In order to register to the ArgDiaP conference, you need to complete a form and pay a fee. The registration link and payment details can be accessed below (in case of problems, please make sure you are using the latest version of your browser). In case, you are planning to participate in more than one WAW event, we offer discounts in early registration fee – see here for the available packages. The package can be selected through drop down list in a registration form.

 Early registration fee
until 9 September
 Late registration fee
after 9 September
  Onsite registration fee
 540 PLN
(approx. 125 EUR)		  760 PLN
(approx. 180 EUR tbc)		  910 PLN
(approx. 210 EUR)
The ArgDiaP conference fees include conference materials, lunch, coffee breaks and the gala dinner. The gala dinner will take place on Sat 15th Sept.
At least one of the authors of each accepted paper is required to attend the conference and to present the paper.

Registration for ArgDiap Events is now open. Click below to register for the ArgDiap Conference and either ArgDiap Workshop.

There are discounts in the registration fees in case of participating in two or more WAW2018 events. See here for more details on the available packages. Note that P2 (5% discount) applies if you register for both the ArgDiap conference and any of the ArgDiap workshops by the early bird date (09th September).

http://waw2018.argdiap.pl/argdiap-conference/#reg

 
The total registration fee, which appears at the bottom of the form and in the confirmation email, must be paid via bank transfer. Unfortunately, due to some Polish regulations we cannot accept credit card payments. Note that if you register to the COMMA conference and you are not interested in display space or sponsorship, attendance to the Industry Afternoon is free. For bank transfer details related to SSA, go to this webpage. For bank transfer details for the COMMA events, go to this webpage.
If you have any problems which delay your bank transfer, please send an email to Katarzyna Budzynska (budzynska.argdiap@gmail.com) with a confirmation that the payment procedure has started (e.g. a forwarded email from your University’s Administration team that the payment is being processed). As long as such confirmation is received by 9th September, your registration will be treated as early registration.
IBAN: PL91 2490 0005 0000 4530 3800 6827
SWIFT CODE: ALBPPLPW

ACCOUNT HOLDER:
Stowarzyszenie ArgDiaP (ArgDiaP Association)
ul. Krolewska 2
30-045 Krakow
POLAND

PAYMENT REFERENCE:
Conference Fee: ArgDiaP 2018 – [Fist Name] [Last Name]

 
Special Issue

A special issue of Argumentation journal will be published after the ArgDiaP conference and the MET-RhET workshop. The full papers submitted after the workshop will be peer-reviewed to be included in a special issue.


Programme Committee

Local Organizing Committee