Rhetoric, Communication, Dialogue
DOI 10.55206/CIKP7841
Ivanka Mavrodieva
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
E-mail: mavrodieva@phls.uni-sofia.bg
Abstract: This paper presents the results of an analysis of a dialogue between a human and a chatbot on rhetorical topics. The problematic has a topicality that is new in the study of an understudied field, namely the communication in a mini-virtual community between a human and GhatCTP. The first focus is on analyzing linguistic and rhetorical features of answering questions posed by the researcher, who is also a participant in the dialogue. The second focus is on the ways in which the results of the search for rhetoric-related information are presented and structured by the chatbot. The third focus is on the ways in which the chatbot identifies itself using algorithms and pre-prepared information by experts from different fields and how it verbalizes and self-assesses it. The first hypothesis is that from a linguistic point of view the chatbot uses terms; does not allow figurative language, realizes an informative function; structures short texts of good logical consistency, which are dominated by the statement of previously presented information. The second hypothesis is related to rhetorical themes and canons and it is that the chatbot successfully realizes two rhetorical canons (invention and composition) searching for information from accessible online sources, selects and structures facts into popular level. The paper tests a research approach, conventionally called auto-cyberethnographic monitoring, which combines the cyberethnographic method with autoethnography. The text does not aim at providing exhaustive information, it is oriented towards establishing the possibilities of delineating a new scientific field of research that presupposes an interdisciplinary approach and modern research methods.
Keywords: rhetoric, rhetorical canons, language, dialogue, Chatbot GPT, cyberethnographic method, autoethnography, auto-cyberethnographic monitoring.
Rhetoric and Communications Journal, issue 56, July 2023