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  <front>
    <journal-meta />
    <article-meta>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Conversation Shaping Questions: a Taxonomy Used for Mapping Argumentative Dialogues in Financial Discourse</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Olena Yaskorska-Shah</string-name>
          <email>olena.yaskorska-shah@usi.ch</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Andrea Rocci</string-name>
          <email>andrea.rocci@usi.ch</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Chris Reed</string-name>
          <email>chris@arg.tech</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
        </contrib>
        <aff id="aff0">
          <label>0</label>
          <institution>This research is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation in the context of the project “Mining argumentative patterns in context. A large-scale corpus study of Earnings Conference Calls of listed companies” https://p3.snf.ch/project-200857</institution>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff1">
          <label>1</label>
          <institution>Università della Svizzera italiana</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Via Giuseppe Buffi 13, Lugano, 6900</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="CH">Switzerland</country>
        </aff>
      </contrib-group>
      <abstract>
        <p>Quarterly Earnings Conference Calls (ECC) are a type of dialogue where financial analysts craft their questions to managers of listed companies in order to elicit their opinions and evaluations on the firm's past results and future performance, but also to broaden the information base of their own assessment and forecasts of company performance. We use Inference Anchoring Theory (IAT) to capture how analysts' question design shapes managers' contributions, considering both their illocutions and their logical structure as parameters constraining managerial replies. We show that the existing IAT taxonomy of questions, well adapted to debate, is not sufficient to represent ECC dialogues and we provide a new data verified model of question representation in IAT, capturing how illocutions and logical structure of questions constrain the IAT structures the question can anchor as its propositional content and anticipate the IAT structures managers are expected to contribute with their answers. This model has an impact on the development of argument mining techniques for this key financial discourse genre.</p>
      </abstract>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
  <body>
    <sec id="sec-1">
      <title>1. Introduction</title>
      <p>
        The goal of this paper we extend the typology of questions used for a data annotation according to
the Inference Anchoring Theory (IAT) framework in order to capture the question designs found in
Earning Conference Calls (ECC), a key dialogic interaction in financial communication [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ]. The
motivation for undertaking this challenge comes from the practical issue in application of IAT
framework in the ECC analysis as a key component in a project aiming at the Argumentation Mining
of activity relevant argumentative patterns in ECCs2. The final goal of the project is to enable the study
of the effects of argumentation in ECCs on the financial markets. Analyst-manager dialogues in ECCs
have been found to significantly impact the markets in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref8">8</xref>
        ] and [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref12">12</xref>
        ], but the mining techniques applied
to ECC have been limited to sentiment analysis and other shallow methods that cannot capture
argumentative dynamics in dialogue. In order to develop an algorithm searching for the arguments
within the conversation, we are collecting a training corpus in AIFdb3 [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref13">13</xref>
        ] via OVA+ annotation
tool4[
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref11">11</xref>
        ]. Similar corpus studies have been conducted on debate [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
        ] where a suitable taxonomy of
illocutionary forces was developed [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">2</xref>
        ] and applied in corpus studies of radio debate in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref22">22</xref>
        ]. Yet, the
standard taxonomy of question annotation in IAT, applicable in different genres of debate [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref10">10</xref>
        ] is not
applicable to ECC annotation.
      </p>
      <p>
        The problem of a suitable question typology for ECC arises from deep differences in dialogue
structure and dynamics [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref21">21</xref>
        ]. Debate is a symmetric activity type where debaters follow the same
turntaking rules and have access to the full range of assertive and questioning speech acts while competing
for the persuasion of an audience. Like the journalistic press conference, the ECC, as observed in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ]
is an asymmetric activity type where analysts are bound to a questioner role and have strict constraints
on turn taking. Furthermore, ECCs combine features of information-oriented dialogue and
argumentative discussion, with analysts playing the double role of information seekers and
argumentative antagonists. Finally, while debaters have a symmetric incentive to win, in ECCs
managers have a persuasive incentive, while analysts have a professional incentive to be right in their
valuations. These differences between debate and the ECC are reflected in the types of questions which
shape each activity type. Questions in debate reflect dialogical means of conveying opinion or implicit
persuasion, while in ECC analysts use questions to finely constrain the kind of answer managers are
expected to provide [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ] in order to further their participant incentive.
      </p>
      <p>We propose here a question typology capturing the dynamics of interaction between financial
analysts and managers. The typology is data driven and data verified: moving from the practical
problem of the proper annotation of an ECC dialogue corpus in IAT we developed the scheme and
again verified it in the corpus. We designed the typology according to two dimensions: illocutionary
intention and logical structure. Thanks to these two dimensions we can capture not only the intentions
associated with each illocution, but also how each question type frames the content of the expected
answer and relates to the previous and subsequent structure of broadly speaking “logical” relations
between propositional contents, as captured by IAT.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-2">
      <title>2. Field of financial communication</title>
      <p>
        ECC Earnings Conference Calls (ECC), described in in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ] and [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ], are voluntary public disclosures
between top management and financial analysts, on the occasion of the publication of a written
Quarterly Earnings Report. While only accredited analysts can ask questions, anyone can log in and
listen to these calls live. Recordings and transcripts of varying quality by third parties circulate widely.
We based our analyses on our own transcripts based on the audio files. They are opened by a
presentation part where the top management presents the highlights of the quarterly results, discusses
any matters of major present concern, and provides an outlook for the future, which might include
“guidance” on future earnings.
      </p>
      <p>
        The presentation is followed by the Q&amp;A. Procedurally, during the Q&amp;A analysts are bound to a
questioner role, just like journalists in a press conference. They are restricted to one question turn, and
possibly a follow-up, while managers intervene along the whole Q&amp;A self managing their own
turntaking. Interestingly, neither the presentation nor the Q&amp;A are expected to add any “material
information” to what is already in the written report. Yet, especially the Q&amp;A is perceived as valuable
for the soft information it can provide – the color as financial analysts like to call it [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref8">8</xref>
        ]. Analysts look
for context and story behind the numbers, try to elicit more detailed explanations of results as well as
managerial evaluative opinions, future outlook and statements of intention, and the arguments
supporting each of these, which may well be the real informational added value of the event [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref16">16</xref>
        ]. While
analysts aim to acquire relevant information to support their own valuation of the company, their
earnings forecasts, and their assessment of managerial performance, they do not express these
standpoints during the ECC. This will be done elsewhere, in research reports, recommendations and
notes to investors.
      </p>
      <p>
        We can model the ECC activity type as the conjunction between (a) an information-offering dialogue
[
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref15">15</xref>
        ] where managers have a commitment to provide information and analysts to identify and receive
the information offered, and (b) a discussion on the two issues of firm valuation and managerial
accountability, where both parties can be seen as committed to the rules of a critical discussion [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref9">9</xref>
        ],
where managers take the role of protagonists of standpoints on the two issues, while analysts take the
role of pure antagonists aiming at testing the managerial standpoints, but without standpoints of their
own. The ECC activity is thus the conjunction of two asymmetric dialogue games (see: table 4 in the
appendix). Individual incentive of the managers is to persuade analysts and investors defending the
valuation of the company and their own stewardship. Thus they are expected to be selective information
offerers and rhetorically minded arguers. In contrast, analysts have a fundamental professional incentive
to be right in their valuations and forecasts. Ex hypothesi they are expected to be eager information
seekers and unbiased critical antagonists, crafting their questions both to test managerial standpoints
and to broaden the evidential basis for their analysis.
      </p>
      <p>
        Question design is the fundamental tool that analysts have at their disposal to further their incentives,
enrich the information base and put managerial standpoints to the test. While questions in debate reflect
dialogical means of conveying of opinion or implicit persuasion, in ECC analysts use questions to finely
constrain the kind of answer managers are expected to provide [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref14">14</xref>
        ] in order to further their twofold
participant incentive. Previous studies, [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
        ], [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ] and [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
        ] have observed that analysts’ questions are
syntactically complex and involve indirect requests of specific speech acts (explaining, clarifying,
confirming, commenting, etc.) from the managers and/or specific kinds of information. A first typology
of the requests posed by the analysts during the ECC is provided in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
        ] and verified in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ]. Detailed
schematic description is presented in table 2 in Appendix.
      </p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-3">
      <title>3. IAT framework for the data annotation</title>
      <p>
        We use the inference anchoring theory (IAT) [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref>
        ] to represent the deeper interrelation between two
processes which are taking place at the same time: dialogic interaction and reasoning construction. To
represent the structure of an argumentative dialogue in IAT framework, we need to take into account
three dimensions of the argumentative dialogue: (1) a dialogue itself, which is conducted according to
particular rules (transitions), (2) elements of argumentation structure and (3) illocutionary dimension,
which constitutes a glue for the first two. Let’s use example 1 from our data set for the visualization of
the annotation process.
      </p>
      <p>Example 1 Irene Himona: [...]And I think you mentioned the $7 unit cost target. Why $7? Is that
closer to the cost structure of the nine core areas?
Wael Sawan: [...] And when we look at the aspired portfolio that we want to try to get to and we look
at the potential of that portfolio, we see it as being around $7 a barrel. […]
(source: Royal Dutch Shell; Q1 2021)</p>
      <p>In figure 1, corresponding to the illocutionary force of challenging, manager’s reply fulfills the
request and justifies the challenged propositional content. Both, the analyst and the manager are
building an argument, which is anchored in the transition, i.e. dialogical rule. If we want to fully reflect
the dynamics of dialogical argument in IAT, we need to pay special attention to the text segmentation
and specification of the propositional content of the locutions. According to IAT, an annotator should
lead to the basic argumentative unit as a singular segment. For example, if a player would ask to justify
two standpoints in a row, like e.g. “Why is Your target unit cost for product A is $7 and for product B
is $9?” an annotator should divide the locution into two separate challenges. This gives a possibility for
representation of the dynamics of dialogical arguing. Even though both segments are performed and
quantified with the same illocutionary force a respondent, may react differently to each argumentative
unit, e.g. justify only the first part of the question, and disagree with the second.</p>
      <p>
        Such an analytical feature of IAT makes the framework very precise in capturing how elements of
argumentation appear in the dialogue. At the same time, this precision results in the difficulty in defining
a set of tags for illocutionary forces applicable to different communicative contexts. We have noticed
such a problem when we are trying to apply the standard annotation scheme for IAT driven from the
analysis of different types of debate to the analysis of financial communication.
The standard IAT annotation scheme [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref13">13</xref>
        ] includes 4 types of questions: pure questioning, rhetorical
questioning, assertive questions, and challenge does not reflect ECC dialogues. Looking at previous
corpus studies [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
        ] and [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ] of the actual distribution of analysts’ question types, and on the basis of
the modeling of the activity type in 2.1, it is easy to see that if these 4 types were used to annotate
analysts’ questions in ECCs, the great majority of them would turn out to be pure questioning. Only a
tiny minority will be instances of challenge (corresponding to R-of-justification in Table 3 in
Appendix). Treating most of the request types as pure questioning, as a result of adopting the standard
IAT typology, would mean to lose the information on anticipated dialogue structures and inferential
structures. In fact, in 4.1 by considering the two dimensions of illocutionary force and logical structure
we will be able to suggest a more sophisticated way of looking at the pure questioning vs. challenge
distinction.
      </p>
      <p>
        Rhetorical questions would be completely absent as analysts do not waste their precious question
time just to convey their opinions. Assertive questions, finally, are an interesting case. There are two
types of analysts’ questions in Table 1, namely ROCOI and ROCOR that somewhat seem to resemble
assertive questions, but they are not. In both cases, the analyst points to the existence of some evidential
basis for the questioned proposition. Yet, they never assume full commitment for this proposition. More
decisively, the question’s consequences on the development of the argumentation are completely unlike
those described for assertive questions in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref12">12</xref>
        ], p. 63. In contrast with assertive questions, ROCOI/
ROCOR are not used to establish agreement (if answered positively) or making a conflict emerge
between standpoints (if answered negatively). In fact, as it will be clear from 4.2, ROCOI/ ROCOR are
more akin to challenges than to assertive questions.
      </p>
      <p>The difference between argumentation in the debate and ECC is not only on the level of
communicative intentions but also on the level of the propositional content. Questions of the latter often
contain not only argumentative units as in debate, but also complex argumentative structures. In
example 1, the analyst after her challenge builds an argument herself providing a proposed premise “Is
that closer to the cost structure of the nine core areas?”. This is a ROCOI move, the best standard
analysis of which is represented in figure 1, which is also incorrect if we want to show actual dialogical
reasoning in ECC. In order to be able to do so we should answer two questions: what is a propositional
content of, e.g. the ROCOI structure and how the structure is anchored in the process of conversation.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-4">
      <title>4. Two dimensional question modeling in financial discourse</title>
      <p>In this section we are presenting the model for the propositional content of each request type in
Table 1. The model is data verified, i.e. every type of question has its exemplification in the data, which
represents participants’ actual behavior. Material from the paper refers to the online available corpus:
http://corpora.aifdb.org/requests, where we have collected IAT analyses for authentic examples for each
type of question, demonstrating their modeling in IAT. Due to space limitations, here we limit ourselves
to presenting select examples allowing us to describe our model. The reference Table 4 in the appendix
of the paper provides, for each type of request, a reference number linking to a map in AIFdb
corresponding to the IAT analysis of the example.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-5">
      <title>4.1 Two dimensions for conversation shaping</title>
      <p>As anticipated above, analysts’ questions conversation shaping power depends not only on their
illocutionary force, detailed in 4.1, but on their logical structure. Three possible logical structures can
be distinguished in ECC questions: open; yes/no or closed-list questions. Analysts ask functionally open
questions when they simply point to the kind of answer managers should provide without proposing or
suggesting possible answering propositions. While syntactically these are mostly indirect requests (e.g.
could you, please, explain…), we model them as functionally open questions. For example, a request
“explain some fact p” or “elaborate on some topic T” are open questions, which can be best understood
in comparison with two other types of questions.</p>
      <p>
        “Yes/no” questions are questions when an analyst provides an answering proposition and requires
the addressee to establish its truth-value. Some Yes/no questions may just fashion the issue under
discussion by giving presence to one of the possible standpoints, without signaling epistemic
commitment to it, or its desirability. Others, however, point to underlying evidence gathered by the
analysts and behave like requests to confirm or disconfirm this evidential basis. Closed-list questions
appear when analysts provide a set of possible answers for the manager to refer to. Possible answers
are presented as a disjoint alternative, as have been shown in qualitative studies in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19">19</xref>
        ]. By displaying
those alternative answers, analysts can evoke a real or imagined debate, which prompts managers to
position themselves with respect to the evoked standpoints, and possibly express new standpoints of
their own if none of the alternatives evoked is acceptable. In Table 1 we introduce propositional contents
for each type of question encountered in ECCs, defined in terms of its illocutionary force and logical
structure.
      </p>
      <sec id="sec-5-1">
        <title>Type of requests</title>
        <p>R-of-explanation
R-of-justification
R-of-confirmation-inf
R-of-confirmation-report
R-of-clarification</p>
        <p>The rows of Table 1 correspond to the illocutionary forces in Table 3 in Appendix, while columns
correspond to the three logical structures: the cells represent the propositional contents anchored by the
questions with collinear illocution and logical structure. In relation to the illocutionary dimension, ECC
questions can be divided into two groups. Illocutions of the first group, in the upper half of the table,
when combined with the yes/no logical structure, can potentially anchor IAT relations between
propositional contents. They include: r-of-explanation, r-of-justification, r-of-confirmation-inf,
r-ofconfirmation-report and r-of-clarification. In the open type, those questions do not directly anchor IAT
relations, but can be perceived as directive requests describing an instruction of what a manager is
supposed to do with a given propositional content, e.g. justify p or clarify p, etc. For the sake of story,
let’s call them illocutions requesting relations. The second group of illocutions does not anchor or
anticipate IAT relational structure: r-of-elaboration, r-of-opinion, r-of-commitment, r-of-data. We can
name them premise or standpoint seeking requests, as they request new bits of information explicitly,
e.g. to provide data, an opinion or a commitment. We describe both types of illocutions in detail in the
following subsections.</p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-6">
      <title>4.2 Requesting relations</title>
      <p>
        In the ECC we model two types of relations which can be requested. Relation of inference (RA) or
relation of rephrase (MA). The illocutionary force of requesting explanation, justification, confirmation
of inference and confirmation of report will anchor and/or anticipate the relation of inference. For the
purposes of this paper, we acknowledge differences and similarities between explanations and
argumentations along the lines of [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref>
        ]. Consequently, we say that in explanation, there is still a relation
of inference between a premise and a conclusion, yet in that case, conclusion is already a known fact,
not a discussible opinion. In the ECC requesting the explanation can be posed as an open (see: Example
2 and Figure 2), yes/no (see: Example 3 and Figure 3) or closed list (see: example 4 and Figure 4)
question.
      </p>
      <p>Example 2: Jaime Katz: […] While you guys have made all these steps in sourcing and availability
of products for the holiday season, how have the retailers worked with you to accept that product?
(Source: Hasbro Inc., Q2 2021)</p>
      <p>In the open type of questions r-of-explanation illocution has a propositional content, a proposition
describing a fact that an analyst wants to be explained. The question does not anchor an explanatory
RA, but anticipates one from the managers.</p>
      <p>Example 3: Devin Brisco: [...] Could you -- could that segment [of partner brands] grow more in
line with your core business for the full year, just given, you know, increased Disney+ adoption and
new series like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? (Source: Hasbro, Inc., Q1 2021)</p>
      <p>In contrast, in the yes/no type of requests of explanation, an analyst already proposed the
disaggregate explanation of the predictive event. He poses a fact which is about to come and states that
there is a causal RA relation between the fact and the explanation. When asking whether the provided
elements are true or false an analyst is asking about all the structure, but primarily he is asking the
causal relation between the explanans and explanandum. Therefore, the propositional content anchored
by such a move is the RA relation as an element which overwhelms all elements of the structure. In
such a way, the manager in his reply will also be able to relate to the proposed predictive event, proposed
cause and relation between them.</p>
      <p>Example 4: Oswald Clint: [...]And then on chemicals, could you really describe the margin strength
you're seeing? Would you characterize it as demand-led across your products and businesses? Or is it a
function of the Texas freeze and some of the deep cracker maintenance that you're seeing? (Source:
Shell plc, Q1 2021)</p>
      <p>
        Closed list questions are about introducing two or more possible explanations, i.e. RA relations
between a fact and its possible explanations. As has been shown in closer qualitative studies on the
closed-list questions in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19">19</xref>
        ], posing a closed list questions analysts have a strategy to propose
alternatives, which are in a relation of conflict [CA]. We model this relation of conflict as a
propositional content of the closed-list question, as an analyst in such a way would have a possibility
to accept the disjunctive alternative and confirm one possibility or (as it happens pretty frequently)
reject the relation of conflict between options. This actually happened in the analyzed example 4, when
Jessica Uhl said “That is a function of demand and some strengthening in the economy, certainly in
Asia, that's driving that”.
      </p>
      <p>
        While explaining results is an important component of ECC Q&amp;A, with obvious implications for
managerial accountability, explanations do not exhaust the range of RAs anchored and anticipated by
ECC questions. The antagonistic role of analysts involves also challenging managerial standpoints.
Argumentation in ECC is more complex than explanations as it is dealing with argumentation proper
where the truth of the inferred claims/standpoints is not yet established. We examine here two different
challenge-like illocutions: the r-of-justification and the r-of-confirmation-inference (ROCOI).
Combined they cover the three possible logical structures, which r-of-explanation covered on its own.
When an analyst performs the open r-of-justification, which corresponds to a directive Justify p!, they
attribute a standpoint to the managers and evoke their burden of proof. In the ECC context, this is a
fairly face-threatening move and exceedingly rare, as observed in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref21">21</xref>
        ]. In the case of
r-of-confirmationinf (ROCOI), an analyst proposes not only possible premises and relation of inference, but the
standpoint is also tentative and liable of confirmation or disconfirmation, i.e. the manager does not have
a burden of justification for it. This more indirect strategy is analysts’ preferred way to challenge
managers.
      </p>
      <p>The r-of-confirmation-report (ROCOR), illustrated in example 4 above, also has an argumentative
value. Managers are called to confirm or disconfirm the evidential value of previous statements or third
party reports. It does not have a corresponding open type. This would be a special case of
r-ofjustification, corresponding to the directive: “Give me a source for p!”. We haven’t encountered this
illocution, and it might be very rare, for reasons inherent to the activity type itself: the fact that the
managers are on record saying p in an ECC already constitutes a high quality official source, as they
made themselves liable to legal claims with a public statement.</p>
      <p>Example 5: Arpine Kocharyan: I was wondering on your gaming business, is your margin guidance
of 39% for the year largely unchanged? (Source: Hasbro, Inc., Q1 2021)</p>
      <p>Finally, when annotating a proposition p which clarifies a proposition q, we indicate the relation of
the rephrase between p and q. Triggering the relation of rephrase (MA) r-of-clarification, therefore will
work the same as other requests triggering relation of inference.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-7">
      <title>4.3 Requesting premises and standpoints</title>
      <p>As for the second group of illocutionary forces, it is in their open type where their orientation towards
the acquisition of more information is more apparent, as opposed to the establishment of relations
between existing pieces of information that characterizes the first group. Their propositional contents
are open propositions Px which contain variables x representing missing information. In some cases the
missing information can be a whole proposition like in the case of requests of elaboration, opinion or
commitment, or just a particular bit of information required to saturate a proposition, like in the case of
requesting data. Consequently, we model the propositional contents of the open type of these questions
as follows:
r-of-elaboration: “X elaborates about d”, where d is a description of the topic T;
r-of-opinion: “X is an opinion on d”, where d is a description of an open issue Q;
r-of-commitment: “X is a commitment on d”, where d is a description of the practical issue Q;
r-of-data: unrestricted open description P of a state of affairs S containing a variable x.</p>
      <p>
        In the open type of R-of-opinion, (example 6) an analyst verbalizes a topic on which they want a
manager to give an opinion. This does not directly anticipate argumentation structure, however
managers, having committed to a point of view on some topic, will be to some extent subject to a burden
of proof. Thus, it can be an indirect way to elicit argumentation. In the yes/no variant of the R-of-opinion
analysts fashion an opinion on the topic, giving it propositional form. This does not go as far as the
Rof-confirmation-inf (ROCOI) where an RA supporting a standpoint is provided, yet the very fact that this
opinion is given verbal substance makes it a conceivable opinion. This also pushes the boundaries of
the information base available to analysts, by avoiding that managers express extremely vague opinions.
The propositional content of such a move is an alternative between the opinion p and its negation, like
in the example represented in figure 7. When providing a closed list of questions (example 8), an analyst
provides two or more different opinions, sometimes suggesting the existence of a debate and – again –
constraining the possibility for managers to resort to vagueness. As was shown in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19">19</xref>
        ] closed list
questions usually have relation of conflict between the options, which is, as in case of example 4 is the
propositional content of the question, as shown in figure 8.
      </p>
      <p>Example 6: Michele Della Vigna: How do you think about the split between dividends and buybacks
in terms of how it trends over the coming years with a potential stronger macro backdrop?
(Source: Shell plc., Q2 2021 Earnings Call)</p>
      <p>Example 7: David Beckel: I'm curious [...] whether or not you expect mobile to further expand the
market base. That's my first question. (Source: Hasbro inc., Q1 2021)</p>
      <p>Example 8: Fred Wightman: [...] Do you think that given the shipping environment today, we could
see a similar type of timing shift from 3Q to 4Q or relatively steady to the past few years?
(Source: Hasbro, Inc., Q1 2021)</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-8">
      <title>5. Conclusions and discussion</title>
      <p>
        In this paper we presented a IAT-based model of analysts’ questions in ECCs capturing how question
design shapes managers’ contributions, considering both their illocutions and their logical structure as
parameters constraining managerial replies. For instance, by knowing the set of propositional contents
listed in the closed list question, we know which options an analyst provides to the manager, and to
what extent a manager exists the proposed set of options with their answers. Even the most open type
of questions, such as requests for elaboration, would shape the conversation according to the regularities
described in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref9">9</xref>
        ]. Examples which are listed in table 4 in the appendix show how the proposed model
allows us to represent argumentative structures built during the questions so that we can further analyze
how managers relate to them in their answers.
      </p>
      <p>Illocutionary forces of analysts’ questions were divided in two groups, based on the shape of the
propositional content of their open version (requesting relations vs. requesting premises and
standpoints) and on the possibility of anchoring RA or MA relations in the Yes/No and closed list
versions, which occurs only for the first group. Prima facie, not only R-of-justification, ROCOI and
ROCOR, but all the first group questions are can be analogized with challenges in the standard IAT
typology, not in the strict sense of leveraging on the interlocutor’s burden of proof, but because, like
challenges, they aim at eliciting IAT relations (RA or MA).</p>
      <p>The second group of ECC requests can perhaps be analogized to the pure questioning in IAT
standard taxonomy. When posing this type of questions, analysts are seeking to broaden the evidential
basis at their disposal, they are fishing for new information. However, many of the questions of the
second group, r-of-opinion for instance, can be used in what amounts to an indirect argumentative
challenge. The intertwining of question design and the argumentative dynamics of the dialogue, which
we have opened up with the proposed model, needs to be further investigated.</p>
      <p>
        The description of the model was made through the deeper analysis and discussion of question
moves from the ECC transcripts corpus. Both the communicative intentions and the logical structures
of the questions were defined according to a rational reconstruction of the ECC activity type consistent
with domain knowledge about financial communication, the relevant literature (e.g. [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ], [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
        ] and [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref8">8</xref>
        ])
and preliminary perusal annotation of the ECC transcripts.
      </p>
      <p>More broadly, the introduction of the logical structures and corresponding propositional content
types for questions in IAT is a structural innovation in the annotation framework, whose implications
need to be better understood. This implies the need for further investigation targeting other domains.</p>
      <p>The research presented here also has immediate implications for the annotation of argumentative
dialogue, namely of ECC dialogues and, subsequently, for IAT-based argument mining techniques. In
the following months we will work to greatly increase the size of the corpus, both through the annotation
of entire ECC Q&amp;As and through the creation of targeted collections exemplifying specific dialogic
argumentative patterns, of which the question designs described here are the essential blocks.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-9">
      <title>6. Acknowledgements</title>
      <p>This research is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation in the context of the project
“Mining argumentative patterns in context. A large scale corpus study of Earnings Conference Calls of
listed companies” https://p3.snf.ch/project-200857</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-10">
      <title>7. References</title>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-11">
      <title>Appendix:</title>
      <sec id="sec-11-1">
        <title>Dialogue game:</title>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-11-2">
        <title>Managers’ role:</title>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-1">
          <title>Information offering dialogue</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-2">
          <title>Information offerer</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-3">
          <title>Discussion on valuation and accountability</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-4">
          <title>Incentives:</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-5">
          <title>Protagonist</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-6">
          <title>Persuasion</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-7">
          <title>A draws conclusions on the basis of A wants M to confirm, that A’s previously released information I reasoning is correct</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-8">
          <title>A is less than fully certain about A wants M to confirm or information I which was reported disconfirm that I is the case before, M is expected to know R-of-clarification</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-9">
          <title>R-of-opinion</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-10">
          <title>R-of-commitment</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-11">
          <title>R-of-elaboration</title>
          <p>R-of-data
whether I is the case or at least to
know more about I
p is a
or implied
disclosures
proposition
in the
asserted
firm’s</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-12">
          <title>A wants meaning of p</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-13">
          <title>M to clarify the and implications</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-14">
          <title>Q is an open issue arising from the A wants M to express their</title>
          <p>firm’s disclosures, M are not informed opinion on Q
expected to know the answer to Q,
yet they are expected to possess some
information relevant to it</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-15">
          <title>M are confronted by the practical A wants M to commit to a</title>
          <p>issue Q course of action regarding Q
T is a topic
least mentioned
disclosures
discussed
in the
or at A wants M to provide
firm’s additional information on T</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-16">
          <title>State of affairs S is either already in the public domain of expected to be known by firm’s insiders</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-2-17">
          <title>A wants M to fill a gap in the description of S</title>
          <p>Table 4 represents a data verification of the model. Each type of question has an exemplification
from the text data from Earning Conference Calls from different quarters of the year 2021 following
companies: Hasbro Inc., Royal Dutch Shell Inc., Zillow plc.</p>
        </sec>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-11-3">
        <title>Type of requests</title>
        <sec id="sec-11-3-1">
          <title>R-of-explanation</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-11-3-2">
          <title>R-of-justification</title>
          <p>open
25673
25709
25713
25677
25715
25706
25707
25718
25708
25714
25681
25711
25688
25806
25807
25809
25810
25811</p>
        </sec>
      </sec>
    </sec>
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</article>