System for developing a dialog manager using modular spoken-dialog components

A spoken dialog service having a dialog manager that supports context shifts in a spoken dialog, the dialog manager generated according to a method comprising:

• selecting a top level dialog flow controller that is a recursive transition network (RTN) flow controller and a finite state model;
• selecting available reusable subdialogs for being invoked by the top level flow controller, the reusable subdialogs being isolated from application dependencies;
• and
• testing and deploying the spoken dialog service using the selected top level flow controller and selected reusable subdialogs, wherein when a user of the system changes the context of the spoken dialog while in a reusable subdialog, a context shift returns a context shift indication and sets a state in the top level flow controller.

A spoken dialog system having a dialog manager generated according to a method comprising:

• selecting a recursive transition network (RTN) top level flow controller based on application type, the top level flow controller being a finite state model and having application-dependent features such that a reusable subdialog can operate independent of the decision model of the top level flow controller and the decision models of other reusable subdialogs;
• determining at least one application part below the top level flow controller, each application part requiring a different flow controller;
• selecting available reusable subdialogs for each application part;
• and
• testing and deploying the spoken dialog service using the selected top level flow controller and selected reusable subdialogs.