Internet users' responses to ai through the prism of politeness /

The topic of the thesis is Internet Users’ Reactions to AI Through the Prism of Politeness. The subject are evaluative stances adopted toward AI by Lithuanian-speaking and English-speaking Internet users as a reaction to AI approached in the thesis through the prism of politeness. The aim of this research is to establish the correlation between evaluative stances taken on AI by Lithuanian-speaking and English-speaking Internet users and polite and impolite patterns. To do so, the following objectives have been set: review the key concepts relevant to the investigation, e.g., computer-mediated communication, politeness, Politeness Maxims, collect two computer-mediated data samples (comments by English and Lithuanian-speaking Internet users regarding AI), to establish the correlation between the polite and impolite patterns in the data samples, and to compare the distribution polite and impolite patterns across the two data samples. The research consists of three main parts: the literature review, the data sample analysis and its results, and conclusions. Literature analysis reviewed politeness and its principles proposed by Leech, computer-mediated communication, and the history and the current application of AI. For the methodological part the non-experimental method of data collection and the computer-mediated-discourse analysis were used. The cognitive and descriptive methods were applied to identify and classify polite/impolite patterns produced by the Internet users; the comparative method was used to compare the identified patterns across the two data samples. Quantitative research was conducted to calculate whether there were more polite or impolite comments. It revealed that Lithuanian comments were more frequently impolite, while the larger part of English comments were polite. During the qualitative research data samples were analysed to figure out how the comments violated or observed the politeness principles. The results revealed that the majority of Lithuanian comments were impolite because they violated the Approbation or the Opinion maxim. On the contrary, the larger part of English comments was polite since they observed those same Politeness Maxims.

Grantor dc:publisher

Institutional Repository of Vilnius University

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Vekelytė, Livija,

• Computer-mediated communication, artificial intelligence, politeness, Internet users, kompiuterizuota komunikacija, dirbtinis intelektas, mandagumas, interneto vartotojai

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.vu.lt/VU:ELABAETD210587049&prefLang=en_US

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vu.lt:elaba:210587049