Owen Rambow (Columbia Univ.): Big Data Talk may 2013

Manifestations of Power in Written Interaction

Owen Rambow Center for Computational Learning Systems (CCLS) Columbia University rambow@ccls.columbia.edu

Acknowledgments • Vinodkumar Prabhakaran (current Ph.D. student) • Apoorv Agarwal, Mona Diab, Aaron Harnly, Huzaifa Neralwala, Wisdom Omuya, Rebecca Passonneau • Funded by NSF, the Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, IARPA, and DARPA

Overview • • • •

Language, Power, and the Enron Corpus Types of Power Corpus Analysis Other and Planned work

Dialog and Power: Research Claims • Underlying claim: power relations affect dialog behavior – Corollary claim: dialogs reveal power relationships of discourse participants

• Specific claim 1: Four distinct types of power • Specific claim 2: (at least) two ways for language to signal power – Content and lexical choice – not directly considered here – Dialog structure – relevant here

Issues in Written Dialog • • • • • •

Multiparty interactions No physical co‐presence Asynchronous communication Non‐linear discourse structure (tree, dag) Non‐adjacent adjacency pairs Unanswered questions (or other openers)

Annotation Scheme: Dialog Acts (DAs) • Hu et al 2009 • Inventory: Reduced – Original goal of Hu et al 2009: study interaction comparatively written‐spoken – Easier to generalize

• Our set (n=8): Request‐Information, Inform, Request‐Action, Commit, Conventional, Perform, Backchannel, Other

Annotation Scheme: Links (“Adjacency Pairs” in Email) • Need explicit links between segments – Forward link (flink): between request for information or action and its response – Secondary link (Sflink): between any other DA pair (typically, Inform‐Inform) – Dangling flink (a request is not answered)

Sample Dialog Annotation: City of Glendale Email Thread Kim S Ward to Sara Shackleton: M1.1. Sara,[Conventional: salutation]M1.2. Believe it or not, we are very close getting our signed ISDA from the City of Glendale.[Inform]M1.3. Steve Lins, the City attorney had a couple of questions which I will attempt to relay without having a copy of the documents.[Inform]M1.4 (…) M1.7. He feels this reference should be deleted.[Inform]M1.8. What is your opinion regarding this?[Request‐Information]Flink1.8 M1.9. 2) We sent him a couple of form documents to facilitate the documents required under the ISDA. (…)

M1.12. Steve is going to get a certified copy of this Resolution.[Inform]M1.13. Will this suffice?[Request‐ Information]Flink1.13 M1.14. When you return, I may try to do one last conference call to alleviate any unanswered questions.[Inform] M1.15. I think we will have an executed ISDA with the City of Glendale by the end of next week. M1.16. I am going to be out there meeting with them on Wednesday.[Inform] M1.17. Thanks for your help,[Conventional: thanks] Sara Shackleton to Kim S Ward cc Marie Heard: M2.1. Kim:[Conventional: salutation] M2.2. Can you obtain the name of Glendale's bond counsel (lawyer's name, phone number, email, etc.)?[Request‐Information]Flink2.2 M2.3.

Thanks.[Conventional: thanks] M2.4. SS[Conventional: signature] Kim S Ward to Sara Shackleton: M3.1. Glendale's City Attorney is Steve Lins.M3.2. His phone number is 818‐548‐2080 and his email is slins@ci.glendale.ca.us. [Inform]Blink2.2 Sflink3.2 M3.3. Please let me know if you need anything else.[Inform] M3.4. I will be in their offices on Wednesday.[Inform] Marie Heard to Sara Shackleton: M4.1. Sara:[Conventional: salutation]M4.2. I do not see a copy of an opinion in the file nor have we received one since I sent the execution copies of the ISDA to Steve Lins.[Inform] Kim S Ward to Steve Lins: M5.1. Steve,[Conventional: salutation]M5.2. could you provide the name, phone number, etc. of your bond council for our attorney, Sara Shackleton?[Request‐Information]Blink2.2Flink5.2M5.3.

Thanks,[Conventional: thanks] Sara Shackleton to Kim S Ward: M6.1. I need the city's bond counsel (outside counsel).[Request‐ Information]Blink3.2Sflink6.1 Kim S Ward to Sara Shackleton: M7.1. Is this to obtain outside opinion?[Request‐Information]Blink6.1Flink7.1 M7.2. I thought we were going to do that at our own expense.[Inform]Sflink7.2 Sara Shackleton to Kim S Ward : M8.1. We are going to do this at our own expense.[Inform]Blink7.2 M8.2. But we would like to hire Glendale's bond counsel.[Inform] M8.3. I don't know the name of Glendale's bond counsel or how to get in touch with them.[Request‐Information]Sflink8.3 Kim S Ward to Sara Shackleton: M9.1. I will work on this for you ‐ and will be in touch.[Inform]Blink8.3 M9.2.

Thanks![Conventional: thanks]

Corpus: Enron Corporate Email • Enron, Inc: bankruptcy in 2001 made emails available to researchers • 122 email threads of the Enron email corpus (with missing messages restored, Yeh and Harnly 2006) • Extensive manual annotation of hierarchical power (Agarwal et al 2012) • American corporate culture 2001 • Mostly information exchange, scheduling meetings, and solving problems, also purely social emails

Overview • • • •

Language, Power, and the Enron Corpus Types of Power Corpus Analysis Other and Planned work

Hierarchical Power • There is an organization with a hierarchy • We have extensive gold hierarchy from Enron (Agarwal et al 2012) – Not hand‐annotated – (relatively) BIG DATA – 3 other types of power are hand‐annotated – SMALL DATA

Situational Power • Person A can direct Person B in the current situation while a particular task is being performed • Independent of organizational hierarchy • Example: next slide

Message 1: From Karen Buckley to Lloyd Will, John Lavorato, Kimberly Hillis, etc.

M1.1. Attached is the current list of rotations for the Trading Track participants and future assigned rotations (as decided at the time of hiring).

M1.2. Can you please re‐confirm you have these people in your group currently, M1.3. as I appear to have conflicting information.

M1.4. I will re‐send, if any changes occur.

M1.5. If there is any movement of these people between groups can you plese keep me in the loop.

M1.6. Kind regards, M1.7. Karen.

Message 2: Reply from Lloyd Will to Karen Buckley, John Lavorato, Kimberly Hillis, etc.

M2.1. Karen attached is the latest status of the power trading track folks.

M2.2. I will use your template going forward to track changes.

M2.3. Thanks.

Message 3: Reply from Karen Buckley to John Lavorato, Kimberly Hillis, etc.

M3.1. John M3.2. Following the interviews next week, M3.3. suggest your management team get together to review the rotations for the Trading Track, M3.4. to see if they continue to meet business/Employe needs to ensure we have accurate data from a tracking perspective.

M3.5.Karen Karen Buckley can direct John Lavorato / Lloyd Will in this situation Reason: In messages 1 and 3 from Karen (specifically M1.2, M1.5, M3.3), she gives specific directives to the others; in Message 2 from Lloyd Will to Karen, he complies with her request.

Controlling Communication • Active attempts at achieving the intended goal of the communication • People controlling the communication – Ask questions – Request others to take communicative actions (within the dialog or outside) – Talk about the structure of communication

• Example: Next slide

Influence • A person is influential if: – They are consulted for their advice/opinion – Their advice/opinions are considered important

• Example: Paul, Dan are influential Message 1: From Jaime Sanabria to Richard Shapiro M1.1. Paul / Dan: M1.2. Can you give me your opinion as to the structure of this deal, based on your experience?

Overview • • • •

Language, Power, and the Enron Corpus Types of Power Corpus Analysis Other and Planned work

Features for Dialog Structure •

Basic structure – Am I the initiator?

– Do I have the first message?

– Do I have the last message?

•

Verbosity – # of sent messages – Total # of words in entire thread – # of words/message

•

Links – – – – – –

# of flinks (connected) # of secondary flinks # of connected forward links # of dangling flinks dlink ratio # of blinks (= flink or sflink going back from a DFU)

Features for Dialog Structure (continued) • Dialog Acts – Percentage of Informs among my utterances – Percentage of Request‐informations – Percentage of Request‐actions – Percentage of Commits – Percentage of Conventionals

• Overt Displays of Power

Frequency of Types of Power in Enron Corpus Total :122 threads annotated • Hierarchical Power Gold: => 18 • Situational Power Annotation: => 81 • Controling Communication Ann: => 127 • Influence Annotation: => 11

Data Analysis Numbers are per Person per Thread Structure: Initiator?

Verbosity: #Sent Messages

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

HP

0.57

0.27

1.46

1.33

0.02

0.10

0.60

0.56

0.36

0.50

0.74

0.56

0.61

0.27

0.61

0.94

SP

0.48

0.68

1.32

1.68

0.01

0.07

0.63

0.56

0.14

0.78

0.59

0.98

0.44

0.83

0.59

0.72

CC

0.11

0.88

1.22

1.62

0.04

0.03

0.61

0.60

0.21

0.49

0.49

0.91

0.35

0.75

0.94

0.71

INF

0.55

0.64

1.45

1.45

0.04

0.00

0.59

0.78

0.30

0.09

0.74

0.45

0.57

0.73

0.61

1.00

Type

Overall

T‐test

0.55

1.45

Highly significant (p<.001)

DA: Request for Action

DA: Inform

0.03

Significant (p<.05)

Overt Display of Power

Links: #Forward Links

Links: #Connected Forward Links

0.61

Approaching significance (p<.1)

Not significant

Links: #Backward Links

Data Analysis: Hierarchical Power Structure: Initiator?

Verbosity: #Sent Messages

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

HP

0.57

0.27

1.46

1.33

0.02

0.10

0.60

0.56

0.36

0.50

0.74

0.56

0.61

0.27

0.61

0.94

SP

0.48

0.68

1.32

1.68

0.01

0.07

0.63

0.56

0.14

0.78

0.59

0.98

0.44

0.83

0.59

0.72

CC

0.11

0.88

1.22

1.62

0.04

0.03

0.61

0.60

0.21

0.49

0.49

0.91

0.35

0.75

0.94

0.71

INF

0.55

0.64

1.45

1.45

0.04

0.00

0.59

0.78

0.30

0.09

0.74

0.45

0.57

0.73

0.61

1.00

Type

Overall

0.55

1.45

DA: Request for Action

0.03

DA: Inform

Overt Display of Power

Links: #Forward Links

Links: #Connected Forward Links

0.61

Hierarchical Power (18/221):  Fewer connected flinks  Only other indicator: bosses send shorter messages (not shown)

Links: #Backward Links

Data Analysis: Situational Power Structure: Initiator?

Verbosity: #Sent Messages

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

HP

0.57

0.27

1.46

1.33

0.02

0.10

0.60

0.56

0.36

0.50

0.74

0.56

0.61

0.27

0.61

0.94

SP

0.48

0.68

1.32

1.68

0.01

0.07

0.63

0.56

0.14

0.78

0.59

0.98

0.44

0.83

0.59

0.72

CC

0.11

0.88

1.22

1.62

0.04

0.03

0.61

0.60

0.21

0.49

0.49

0.91

0.35

0.75

0.94

0.71

INF

0.55

0.64

1.45

1.45

0.04

0.00

0.59

0.78

0.30

0.09

0.74

0.45

0.57

0.73

0.61

1.00

Type

Overall

0.55

1.45

DA: Request for Action

0.03

DA: Inform

Overt Display of Power

0.61

Situational Power (81/221): • More messages • More Request‐actions • More Overt Displays of Power • More connected flinks

Links: #Forward Links

Links: #Connected Forward Links

Links: #Backward Links

Data Analysis: Control of Communication Structure: Initiator?

Verbosity: #Sent Messages

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

HP

0.57

0.27

1.46

1.33

0.02

0.10

0.60

0.56

0.36

0.50

0.74

0.56

0.61

0.27

0.61

0.94

SP

0.48

0.68

1.32

1.68

0.01

0.07

0.63

0.56

0.14

0.78

0.59

0.98

0.44

0.83

0.59

0.72

CC

0.11

0.88

1.22

1.62

0.04

0.03

0.61

0.60

0.21

0.49

0.49

0.91

0.35

0.75

0.94

0.71

INF

0.55

0.64

1.45

1.45

0.04

0.00

0.59

0.78

0.30

0.09

0.74

0.45

0.57

0.73

0.61

1.00

Type

Overall

0.55

1.45

DA: Request for Action

0.03

DA: Inform

Overt Display of Power

Links: #Forward Links

Links: #Connected Forward Links

Links: #Backward Links

0.61

Control of Communication (127/221): • More initiations • More Flinks Most similar: Situational Power and Controlling Communication, BUT • SP has more Request‐actions, CC has fewer (not significant) • SP has more Blinks (not significant), while CC has fewer than non‐CC

Data Analysis: Influence Structure: Initiator?

Verbosity: #Sent Messages

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

HP

0.57

0.27

1.46

1.33

0.02

0.10

0.60

0.56

0.36

0.50

0.74

0.56

0.61

0.27

0.61

0.94

SP

0.48

0.68

1.32

1.68

0.01

0.07

0.63

0.56

0.14

0.78

0.59

0.98

0.44

0.83

0.59

0.72

CC

0.11

0.88

1.22

1.62

0.04

0.03

0.61

0.60

0.21

0.49

0.49

0.91

0.35

0.75

0.94

0.71

INF

0.55

0.64

1.45

1.45

0.04

0.00

0.59

0.78

0.30

0.09

0.74

0.45

0.57

0.73

0.61

1.00

Type

Overall

0.55

1.45

DA: Request for Action

0.03

DA: Inform

Overt Display of Power

Links: #Forward Links

0.61

Influence (11/221): • Fewer initiations (not significant) • Fewer Request‐actions and ODPs • More Informs

Links: #Connected Forward Links

Links: #Backward Links

Data Analysis: Overall Hypotheses Structure: Initiator?

Verbosity: #Sent Messages

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

0

1

HP

0.57

0.27

1.46

1.33

0.02

0.10

0.60

0.56

0.36

0.50

0.74

0.56

0.61

0.27

0.61

0.94

SP

0.48

0.68

1.32

1.68

0.01

0.07

0.63

0.56

0.14

0.78

0.59

0.98

0.44

0.83

0.59

0.72

CC

0.11

0.88

1.22

1.62

0.04

0.03

0.61

0.60

0.21

0.49

0.49

0.91

0.35

0.75

0.94

0.71

INF

0.55

0.64

1.45

1.45

0.04

0.00

0.59

0.78

0.30

0.09

0.74

0.45

0.57

0.73

0.61

1.00

Type

Overall

0.55

1.45

DA: Request for Action

0.03

DA: Inform

Overt Display of Power

Links: #Forward Links

Links: #Connected Forward Links

Links: #Backward Links

0.61

• All 4 types of power are reflected in Dialog structure • 4 types of power are different

Overview • • • •

Language, Power, and the Enron Corpus Types of Power Corpus Analysis Other and Planned work

Other and Planned Work • We did machine learning experiments • Annotate more data, and new data (Wikipedia discussion forums, web political discussion sites) • Correlate Hierarchical Power with historical record of Enron organizational hierarchy • Correlate power with gender • Extend feature set – Semantics (semantic types, roles, modality, committed belief)

Thanks!

Corpus: Size and Dialog Acts Tel. Email Words 21,097 17,924 DFUs (segments) 3,845 1,400 Dialog Act Labels Inform 50% 61% Request‐Information 20% 11% Request‐Action 1% 3% Commit 9% 0% Conventional 7% 25% Backchannel 13% 0%

Corpus: Links Tel. Enron Segments by Link Part of a Paired Links 32% 14% Links by Type

Flink Secondary Flink Dangling Flink

54% 39% 7%

28% 37% 33%

Overt Display of Power • Requests (for information or for action) create an obligation on the part of the recipient to respond, but he or she can refuse – the obligation is a dialog obligation – Could you finish the report by this evening?

– I wish I could, but I need to take my son to a baseball game

• The request can be formulated in a manner that restricts the recipients options – the obligation goes beyond the dialog – – – –

I expect you to finish the report by this evening # Would love to, but I need to take my son to a baseball game Sure I just had a heart attack and am near death, how about tomorrow (assuming I recover)?

Overt Display of Power • • • • •

Hand annotation of our Enron corpus 5% of utterances have Overt Display of Power Relevant features: POS, words, dialog acts Can predict with 65.8% F‐measure Prabhakaran et al 2012

Research Hypotheses •

Hierarchical Power: – More connected flinks

•

Situational Power: – – – –

•

More messages More Request‐actions More Overt Displays of Power More connected flinks

Controlling Communication – More initiations – More Flinks

•

Influence: – Fewer initiations – Fewer Request‐actions – More Informs

•

Overall hypotheses: – All types of power are reflected in the dialog structure – The 4 types of power are different