Preliminary Call for Papers SIGDIAL 2015 CONFERENCE Wednesday, September 2 to Friday, September 4, 2015 The 16th Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue 

(SIGDIAL 2015) will be located in Prague, Czech Republic. SIGDIAL will be held September 2-4. The SIGDIAL venue provides a regular forum for the presentation of cutting edge research 

in discourse and dialogue to both academic and industry researchers. Continuing with a series 

of fifteen successful previous meetings, this conference spans the research interest areas of 

discourse and dialogue. The conference is sponsored by the SIGdial organization, which serves 

as the Special Interest Group in discourse and dialogue for both ACL and ISCA. TOPICS OF INTEREST We welcome formal, corpus-based, system-building or analytical work on discourse and 

dialogue including but not restricted to the following themes and topics: - Discourse Processing and Dialogue Systems - Corpora, Tools and Methodology - Pragmatic and/or Semantic Modeling - Computational Sociolinguistics - Collaborative Process Analysis - Dimensions of Interaction - Open Domain Dialogue - Style, Voice and Personality in Spoken Dialogue and Written Text - Applications of Dialogue and Discourse Processing Technology - Novel Methods for Generation Within Dialogue SUBMISSIONS Special Session Proposals The SIGDIAL organizers welcome the submission of special session proposals. A SIGDIAL special 

session is the length of a regular session at the conference; may be organized as a poster session,

 a poster session with panel discussion, or an oral presentation session. Special sessions may, 

at the discretion of the SIGDIAL organizers, be held as parallel sessions. Those wishing to 

organize a special session should prepare a two-page proposal containing: a summary of the

 topic of the special session; a list of organizers and sponsors; a list of people who may submit 

and participate; and a requested format (poster/panel/oral session). These proposals should be 

sent to conference[at]sigdial.org by the special session proposal deadline. Special session 

proposals will be reviewed jointly by the general and program co-chairs. Papers The program committee welcomes the submission of long papers, short papers, and 

demonstration descriptions. All accepted submissions will be published in the conference 

proceedings. - Long papers may, at the discretion of the technical program committee, be accepted for oral 

or poster presentation. They must be no longer than 8 pages, including title, content, and 

examples. Two additional pages are allowed for references and appendices, which may include 

extended example discourses or dialogues, algorithms, graphical representations, etc. - Short papers will be presented as posters. They should be no longer than 4 pages, including

 title and content. One additional page is allowed for references and appendices. - Demonstration papers should be no longer than 3 pages, including references. A separate 

one-page document should be provided to the program co-chairs for demonstration descriptions, 

specifying furniture and equipment needed for the demo. Authors of a submission may designate their paper to be considered for a SIGDIAL special 

session, which would highlight a particular area or topic. All papers will undergo regular peer 

review. Papers that have been or will be submitted to other meetings or publications must provide this

 information (see submission format). A paper accepted for presentation at SIGDIAL 2015 must 

not have been presented at any other meeting with publicly available proceedings. Any questions 

regarding submissions can be sent to the program co-chairs at program-chairs[at]sigdial.org. Authors are encouraged to submit additional supportive material such as video clips or sound 

clips and examples of available resources for review purposes. Submission is electronic using paper submission software. FORMAT All long, short, and demonstration submissions should follow the two-column ACL 2015 format. 

We strongly recommend the use of ACL LaTeX style files or Microsoft Word style files tailored for 

the ACL 2015 conference. Submissions must conform to the official ACL 2015 style guidelines 

ACL 2015 style guidelines, and they must be electronic in PDF. As in most previous years, submissions will not be anonymous. Papers may include 

authors' names and affiliations, and self-references are allowed. MENTORING SERVICE For several years, the SIGDIAL conference has offered a mentoring service. Submissions with 

innovative core ideas that may need language (English) or organizational assistance will be 

flagged for 'mentoring' and conditionally accepted with recommendation to revise with a mentor.

 An experienced mentor who has previously published in the SIGDIAL venue will then help the 

authors of these flagged papers prepare their submissions for publication. Any questions about 

the mentoring service can be addressed to the mentoring chair Svetlana Stoyanchev at 

mentoring[at]sigdial.org. STUDENT SUPPORT SIGDIAL also offers a limited number of scholarships for students presenting a paper accepted 

to the conference. Application materials will be posted at the conference website. BEST PAPER AWARDS In order to recognize significant advancements in dialogue and discourse science and technology,

SIGDIAL will recognize two best paper awards. A selection committee consisting of prominent 

researchers in the fields of interest will select the recipients of the awards. SPONSOR THE CONFERENCE SIGDIAL offers a number of opportunities for sponsors. For more information, email the 

sponsorships chair Kristy Boyer at sponsor-chair[at]sigdial.org. DIALOGUE AND DISCOURSE SIGDIAL authors are encouraged to submit their research to the journal Dialogue and Discourse, 

which is endorsed by SIGdial. IMPORTANT DATES Special Session Proposal Deadline: Sunday, 15 March 2015 (23:59, GMT-11) Special Session Notification: Monday, 30 March 2015 Long, Short and Demonstration Paper Submission Deadline: Thursday, 30 April 2015 

(23:59, GMT-11) Long, Short and Demonstration Paper Notification: Friday, 12 June 2015 Final Paper Submission Deadline (mentored papers only): Monday, 13 July 2015 Final Paper Submission Deadline (all types except for mentored papers): Monday, 20 July 2015 Conference: Wednesday, 2 September 2015 to Friday, 4 September 2015 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE General Co-Chairs Alexander Koller, University of Potsdam, Germany Gabriel Skantze, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden Technical Program Co-Chairs Masahiro Araki, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan Carolyn Penstein Rose, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Mentoring Chair Svetlana Stoyanchev, AT&T, USA Local Chair Filip Jurcicek, Charles University, Czech Republic Sponsorships Chair Kristy Boyer, North Carolina State University, USA SIGdial President Amanda Stent, Yahoo! Labs, USA SIGdial Vice President Jason Williams, Microsoft Research, USA SIGdial Secretary/Treasurer Kristiina Jokinen, University of Helsinki, Finland