Analysis of Social and Expressive Factors of Requests by Methods of Text Mining

Copyright 2012 by DasIa MunkovaI, Michal Munk, Zuzana FraIterovaI, and BeaIta DIuracIkovaI 26th Pacific Asia Conference on Language,Information and Computation pages 515–524 Analysis of Social and Expressive Factors of Requests by Methods of Text Mining Daša Munková1, Michal Munk1, Zuzana Fráterová2 and Beáta Ďuračková1 1Constantine the Philosopher University / Tr. A. Hlinku 1, 94974 Nitra, Slovakia 2University of Economics / Dolnozemská cesta 1, 85235 Bratislava, Slovakia {dmunkova,mmunk}@ukf.sk, {zfraterova,bdurackova}@gmail.com Abstract In our paper we focus on analysing textual information usage (selected politeness factors of speech act) in mother tongue and in foreign language to identify phenomena of a language consciousness transfer from the mother tongue into a foreign language communication – transference phenomena – and their impact on textual structures of politeness in chosen languages. Our aim was to make an analysis of request texts written in English, Spanish and Slovak language, where we examined the occurrence of keywords, in our case the factors of politeness in mother tongue (Slovak) and in foreign languages (English and Spanish). We examined the formulation of requests made by two different groups, requests formulated by linguists - Slovak students studying English as their major subject - on one side, and the requests formulated by non-linguists - Slovak students studying Economy, with the knowledge of Spanish, - on the other side. We used cross-tabulation analysis and association rule analysis as our research methods. The findings are interesting mainly in terms of differences in the use of politeness factors in English and Slovak language, and also the concordance in the use of politeness factors in Slovak and Spanish texts of requests. 1 Introduction One of the most important tasks of foreign language learning is to learn how to communicate with native speakers properly and fluently not only in routine but also in less common situations, so that the foreign language communication sounds natural, that the students learn how to fulfil their communicative goals or are able to integrate into the life of a different culture. This requires the development of awareness of the nature of language and its impact on the world (Svalberg, 2007). Trompenaars (1998) called the culture as a common network of meanings. Different “cultural” meanings through the semantic codes are anchored in language and are created by the communication structures according to different principles and laws. One of these principles is politeness, which is examined by Pragmalinguistics. In pragmalinguistic language study, politeness communication represents one of the basic topics of successful implementation of language functionality and development of communicative competence (Hymes, 1996; Canale and Swain, 1980). The politeness theory we used when examining production of speech acts of the requesters is the Brown and Levinson model (1987) that is, in various elaborated forms, still applicable today and forms the basis for newer models and definitions of politeness (Scollon and Scollon, 1995; Lim, 1994; Yabuuchi, 2006). Today, authors studying politeness rather focus on cultural relativity of politeness (Watts, Ide and Ehlich, 1992; Blum- Kulka, House and Kasper 1989; Wierzbicka, 1985) and on transition from examining …

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