Abstract
E-learning has become an almost indispensable component of education nowadays. Over the years, computer verbal interaction, as an interactive aspect of the learning process, has grown into a more natural component, closer to the interpersonal exchange. So, artificial intelligence interaction has refined, and also diversified, to the extent that today, the exchange of information is practically possible in any field of knowledge. However, the type of verbal interaction is fundamentally different: while the computer gives the right answer promptly, and straightforwardly, without concealing any information, the teacher is still vulnerable in his/her teaching approach, e.g. when he/she includes subjective elements in his/her answers, or repeats, or forgets to provide useful information. A few observations concerning a comparison of the two types of discourse are made in this paper, from the viewpoint of the pedagogical impact. The differences between the natural language, and the artificial one will be approached from both the sequential, and the typological aspect. The principle organization of verbal interactions will be compared, as finite exchanges of replies with a cognitive purpose. The efficiency of the exchange of information will be discussed, from the point of view of differences in identifying and stating the useful data. Adjacent pairs of replies, stated and achieved differently, depending on the interlocuters, will be examined, starting from communication acts generated by various types of items, e.g. specification, confirmation, correction, explanation, or detailing. Disfunctions induced by contradictions, diversions, digressions, or ambiguous language, as well as restatements due to errors of acknowledgement in both types of verbal interactions will also be discussed, from the viewpoint of the pedagogical efficiency. Certain aspects relating to the control of the verbal interaction in the two learning situations will also be briefly stated. |