Experiments into the influence of linguistic (in)directness on perceived face-threat in Twitter complaints
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Nicolas Ruytenbeek
Nicolas Ruytenbeek is Postdoctoral researcher in Linguistics at the Department for Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University. He is a member of the research group MULTIPLES – Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society, and visiting researcher at Leiden University (LUCL) and the University of Lille (STL). He is the author of
Indirect Speech Acts (2021, CUP). His main research interests are experimental approaches to politeness, speech act comprehension and production and, more generally, issues bearing on the semantics/pragmatics interface.
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Sofie Decock
Sofie Decock is Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at the German Section of the Department for Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University. She is a member of the research group MULTIPLES – Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society. She conducts research on digital business communication, with a focus on complaints, reviews and webcare, and on discursive representations of otherness and body semiotics in travel texts.
Ilse Depraetere is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Lille; she is a member of the research group Savoirs, Textes, Langage (UMR 8163 STL). She has published widely on tense, aspect and modality, the semantics/pragmatics interface being in the foreground of her publications. She is, with Chad Langford, the author of
Advanced English Grammar. A Linguistic Approach (second edition, 2019, Bloomsbury).
Abstract
To date, there has been little attention for the factors that influence the perception of online complaints. We present two experiments in which we test the impact of the degree of linguistic (in)directness and the formal realization of complaint components on complaint perception. Our experimental stimuli are designed on the basis of French-language authentic Twitter complaints which have been coded in terms of the presence of four constitutive complaint components: the complainable, the negative evaluation of the complainable, the person/company responsible for the complainable, and a wish for compensation. In our experiments, participants are asked to read Twitter complaints, and they are invited to assess them in terms of perceived strength, dissatisfaction, (im)politeness, and offensiveness. Our results indicate that not only the number but also the type of component that is formally realized shape complaint perception. We also find a positive correlation between perceived complaint strength and impoliteness. In addition, different formal realizations of the negative evaluation of the complainable have a different effect on complaint perception; in particular, negative emoji make the complaints softer and more polite. We also discuss methodological issues that have arisen while designing the experiments and that have to do with the operationalization of face-threat.
Funding source: Universiteit Gent http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004385
Award Identifier / Grant number: BOF.PDO.2019.0010.01
About the authors
Nicolas Ruytenbeek is Postdoctoral researcher in Linguistics at the Department for Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University. He is a member of the research group MULTIPLES – Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society, and visiting researcher at Leiden University (LUCL) and the University of Lille (STL). He is the author of Indirect Speech Acts (2021, CUP). His main research interests are experimental approaches to politeness, speech act comprehension and production and, more generally, issues bearing on the semantics/pragmatics interface.
Sofie Decock is Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at the German Section of the Department for Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University. She is a member of the research group MULTIPLES – Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society. She conducts research on digital business communication, with a focus on complaints, reviews and webcare, and on discursive representations of otherness and body semiotics in travel texts.
Ilse Depraetere is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Lille; she is a member of the research group Savoirs, Textes, Langage (UMR 8163 STL). She has published widely on tense, aspect and modality, the semantics/pragmatics interface being in the foreground of her publications. She is, with Chad Langford, the author of Advanced English Grammar. A Linguistic Approach (second edition, 2019, Bloomsbury).
Acknowledgments
Nicolas Ruytenbeek gratefully acknowledges the post-doctoral research grant BOF.PDO. 2019.0010.01 from the Special Research Fund at Ghent University.
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Multimodal mitigation: how facial and body cues index politeness in Catalan requests
- “I look with deep gratitude and admiration…” – praising and complimenting in papal speeches
- Experiments into the influence of linguistic (in)directness on perceived face-threat in Twitter complaints
- The impact of linguistic choices and (para-)linguistic markers on the perception of Twitter complaints by other customers: an experimental approach
- (Im)politeness as a tool to categorize interactive discourse markers of Arabic in radio shows
- The embodied enactment of politeness metapragmatics
- Politeness of nonverbal hospitality in Saudi and British female interactions
- Borrowing of address forms for dimensions of social relation in a contact-induced multilingual community
- (Im)politeness on Facebook during the Covid-19 pandemic
- Book Reviews
- Mugford, Gerrard. 2019. Addressing Difficult Situations in Foreign-Language Learning. Confusion, Impoliteness, and Hostility
- From speech acts to lay understandings of politeness: multilingual and multicultural perspectives
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Multimodal mitigation: how facial and body cues index politeness in Catalan requests
- “I look with deep gratitude and admiration…” – praising and complimenting in papal speeches
- Experiments into the influence of linguistic (in)directness on perceived face-threat in Twitter complaints
- The impact of linguistic choices and (para-)linguistic markers on the perception of Twitter complaints by other customers: an experimental approach
- (Im)politeness as a tool to categorize interactive discourse markers of Arabic in radio shows
- The embodied enactment of politeness metapragmatics
- Politeness of nonverbal hospitality in Saudi and British female interactions
- Borrowing of address forms for dimensions of social relation in a contact-induced multilingual community
- (Im)politeness on Facebook during the Covid-19 pandemic
- Book Reviews
- Mugford, Gerrard. 2019. Addressing Difficult Situations in Foreign-Language Learning. Confusion, Impoliteness, and Hostility
- From speech acts to lay understandings of politeness: multilingual and multicultural perspectives
