1. A method of automatically managing a dialogue with a user, the method comprising: generating a generic semantic representation based upon received user-input data, the generic semantic representation being independent of a language and an input modality associated with the received user-input data, the generic semantic representation comprising at least one of a list of semantic slots and a sequence of nested semantic slots; determining a user-intention based upon the received user-input data, the generic semantic representation and at least one of: a maintained state of the dialogue, concept data representing one or more concepts, and history data representing history of the dialogue; performing selection of a list of data items based on any of the concept data representing the one or more concepts and attribute data representing one or more attributes associated with the generic semantic representation; and sending output data indicative of one or more actions for a dialogue application to perform, the one or more actions being determined based on a result of said determining the user-intention.