A Discourse Structural Analysis Survey and Taxonomy for Chatbots

As organizations increasingly adopt chatbots, the complexity of chatbot–human conversations also increases. The success of chatbots depends on their ability to interpret discourse contexts and provide meaningful responses that resonate with users. Discourse-analysis methods, which can elucidate the intricacies of conversation design, discourse structures, and semantics, play an instrumental role in guiding efforts to design human–chatbot conversations and ensuring that they resemble human-human conversations. For this research, we meticulously reviewed 92 scholarly papers that considered discourse-analysis methods for chatbot development to unravel the connections between discourse structures and the dimensions of chatbot design. Furthermore, we examine the extent to which the chatbot dimensions across the four distinct chatbot conversation lifecycle phases align with one another to ensure a comprehensive, cradle-to-grave approach. Additionally, we delved into the conversation modeling dilemmas that emerge when designing contextually sensitive chatbots.