The introduction of natural language and speech into a man-machine interface requires extremely robust systems for language understanding and interpretation, systems which are well integrated into the application. The objective of the"Langue et Dialogue" (Language and Dialogue) team is to define and implement man-machine communication systems with robust and reliable language components.Our activities are expanding in three complementary directions:

• Study of the fundamental mechanisms of communication in natural language, whether alone or accompanied by gestural designation (multimodal dialogue). This research is being undertaken in a cross-disciplinary context that draws on ideas from linguistics, logic, computer science, and cognitive science;
  
• Implementation of effective dialogue systems, particularly in the context of wider collaborations. This work provides us with experimental platforms for testing the various models that we design;
  
• Design of generic methods and tools for the refined study of real dialogue situations. These are obtained by transcribing experiments and simulations or by direct observation. This work is based on the experience acquired over a number of years on the standardization and manipulation of linguistic resources (texts, transcription of spoken data, lexica).
  

  ---

  
  
  

  Surface mail		Scientific leaders
  LORIA - Equipe Langue et Dialogue Campus scientifique BP 239 54506 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy CEDEX France		Patrick Blackburn Téléphone : +33 (0) 3 83 59 30 52 Patrick.Blackburn@loria.fr	Claire Gardent Téléphone : +33 (0) 3 83 59 20 39 Claire.Gardent@loria.fr