Politeness Accommodation in Electronic Mail

摘要

Email has become a common form of interaction between both individuals and groups in the online environment. Based on Buzzanell et al.'s (1996) research of politeness accommodation with telephone messages, this study has investigated politeness accommodation in email. Response rate was high at 81% (n=121). Results indicated that subjects accommodated to verbal markers in the body of a message, and to greetings. Responses to those email messages that included either verbal politeness cues or structural politeness cues were significantly more polite than responses to those email messages that did not include such cues. This research provides a foundation for explaining issues of relationship forming, communication accommodation in an electronic environment, and discourse analysis in online interaction.