Dialogue Moves

There are twelve moves in the Maptask coding scheme:

Six initiating moves

• instruct - commands the partner to carry out an action
• explain - states information which has not been elicited by the partner
• check - requests the partner to confirm information that the checker has some reason to believe, but is not entirely sure about
• align - checks the attention or agreement of the partner, or his/her readiness for the next move
• query-yn - asks the partner any question which takes a "yes" or "no" answer and does not fall into the previous two categories
• query-w - any query which is not covered by the other categories

Five response moves

• acknowledge - a verbal response which minimally shows that the speaker has heard the move to which it responds
• reply-y - any reply to any query with a yes-no surface form which means "yes", however that is expressed
• reply-n - a reply to a a query with a yes/no surface form which means "no"
• reply-w - any reply to any type of query which doesn't simply mean "yes" or "no"
• clarify - a repetition of information which the speaker has already stated, often in response to a check move

One pre-initiating move

• ready - a move which occurs after the close of a dialogue game and prepare the conversation for a new game to be initiated