This talk reports on over a decade of research where theoretical foundations motivate computational models that produce real world impact in online spaces. Both the earliest philosophers of language and the most recent researchers in computational approaches to social media analysis have acknowledged the distinction between the what of language, namely its propositional content, and the how of language, or its form, style, or framing. What bridges between these realms are social processes that motivate the linguistic choices that result in specific realizations of propositional content situated within social interactions, designed to achieve social goals. These insights allow researchers to make sense of the connection between discussion processes and outcomes from those discussions. These findings motivate on the one hand design of computational approaches to real time monitoring of discussion processes and on the other hand the design of interventions that support interactions in online spaces with the goal of increasing desired outcomes, including learning, health, and wellbeing. As an example, in this talk we probe into a specific quality of discussion referred to as Transactivity. Transactivity is the extent to which a contribution articulates the reasoning of the speaker, that of an interlocutor, and the relation between them. In different contexts, and within very distinct theoretical frameworks, this construct has been associated with solidarity, influence, expertise transfer, and learning. Within the construct of Transactivity, the cognitive and social underpinnings are inextricably linked such that modeling the who enables prediction of the connection between the what and the how.
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