Representation and communication in information systems - A speech act based approach

Abstract

One of an information system's important roles is to provide a representation of a Universe of Discourse, which reflects its structure and behaviour. An equally important function of the system is to support communication within an organisation by structuring and coordinating the actions performed by the organisation's agents. In many systems development methods, these different roles that an information system assumes are not explicitly separated. Representation techniques appropriate for one role are uncritically applied to another. In this paper, we propose a unifying framework based on speech act theory, which reconciliates the representation and communication roles of information systems. In particular, we show how communication can be modelled by means of discourses, which are viewed as sequences of events.