“Will you have a cup of tea?” – “No, no, no…” – “Go on, you will” – “No really, I’m fine!” – “You will, just a half-cup” – “Oh okay, just a half cup”.
This is a typical conversation you might witness upon entering an Irish home when I was growing up. The three to four turn polite decline, the modification of the offer, the giving in of the half-cup tea drinker. But in some cultures, this up front refusal of the offer may be interpreted as rude or ungrateful.
When designing virtual agents, be they chatbots or voice bots, an awareness of cultural context and social norms around areas such as politeness may make all the difference in a natural, seamless and comfortable user experience. Existing research in fields such as sociolinguistics can inform these design choices. Of course, nuance applies and not all generalizations will hold in every situation, but valuable insights are available to us if we consult the research!
For example, research by Hass & Wächter (2014) found that Japanese and German cultures present two opposite poles of a continuum when it comes to directness/indirectness of speech. A German communicative style favored the former – being more task oriented. The Japanese style favored the latter – valuing group orientation. Research on politeness has also been carried out in the setting of healthcare. Backhaus (2009) presents a cross-cultural comparative study of elderly care home interaction in Japan with elderly care home interactions in a range of different cultural and linguistic contexts. It was found, for instance, that praise, if applied out of context and in too exaggerated a manner, can be interpreted as another expression of the unequal power relations between residents and staff that characterize everyday life in the institution.
Consulting the research on topics like power dynamics and culturally specific values surrounding politeness are a valuable tool in the conversation designers kit.
What unique politeness principles are present in your culture?
Resources:
Hass & Wächter (2014) Culture and the Question of Impoliteness in Computer-Mediated Communication: a research gap. DOI: 10.18247/1983-2664/educaonline.v8n1p1-12
Backhaus (2009) Politeness in institutional elderly care in Japan: A cross-cultural comparison Journal of Politeness Research 5 (2009). DOI: 10.1515/JPLR.2009.004
Ciara Anderson, PhD 