Identifying Social and Expressive Factors in Request Texts Using Transaction/Sequence Model

Proceedings of Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing, pages 496–503, Hissar, Bulgaria, 7-13 September 2013. Identifying Social and Expressive Factors in Request Texts Using Transaction/Sequence Model Daša Munková1, Michal Munk1 and Zuzana Fráterová2 1Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia {dmunkova,mmunk}@ukf.sk 2University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia zfraterova@gmail.com Abstract The paper focuses on requests in written forms, where we describe a novel approach to computational modelling of specific features of politeness in speech act of requesting. We examine the similarities and differences in the use of specific social and expressive factors in two languages (mother tongue and a foreign language). The requests collected from differ- ent social situations among students and their teachers in a university environment were used as data source for a research. Transac- tion/Sequence model for text representation was formulated and association rules analysis was applied as a research method. The find- ings are interesting mainly in terms of differ- ences in the use of politeness features in for- eign language and mother tongue. The results indicated that the requests written in mother tongue are less direct than in foreign language. 1 Introduction Natural language is the most effective tool to perform speech acts in human communication (giving commands, making requests, apologies, thanks etc.). These speech acts are performed according to certain rules and principles. One of these principles is politeness, which has been discussed by many linguists (Awedyk, 2006; Blum-Kulka et al. 1989; Hill et al., 1986; Lakoff, 1973; Tannen, 1986; Wierzbicka, 1985; Watts at al., 1992, Munková et al., 2012) and others. Po- liteness communication represents one of the basic topics of successful implementation of lan- guage functionality and development of commu- nicative competence (Hymes, 1996; Canale and Swain, 1980). Politeness functions and culture- specific features are associated with certain ex- pressions, and grammatical constructions belong to language functionality in a given language. Based on them we may compare different lan- guages. Researches examining various speech acts in many different languages have provided valuable insights into culture-specific features of politeness in many different languages (Lid- dicoat et al., 2003) and others. The politeness theory we used when examining the 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 defini- tions of politeness (Scollon and Scollon, 1995; Yabuuchi, 2006). Each interlocutor creates his/er own unique speech acts (Cohen, 1996; Searle, 1979) and within them s/he uses factors of po- liteness in various combinations and meanings. We therefore believe that it is important to exam- ine the rules of production of politeness speech acts, which the interlocutors use in the produc- tion of their spoken and written utterances. The graphic form of the human communication is a written text, mostly unstructured, providing various kinds of information between the sender and the receiver, suitable mainly for a particular research or text mining. Text mining includes several research areas. Similarly to KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Da- tabases) …

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