Cultural Pragmatics of Politeness and Sentiment in International Hotel Reviews from a Tourism and Digital Heritage Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23969/sampurasun.v12i1.37192Keywords:
cultural pragmatics, politeness strategies, sentiment analysis, hotel reviews, tourism discourseAbstract
This study explored how international hotel guests constructed evaluative meaning and negotiated culturally grounded expectations through politeness strategies and sentiment expressions in TripAdvisor reviews. As online review writing had evolved into a contemporary socio-cultural practice within global tourism, travelers increasingly used digital platforms to articulate satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and interpretations of local hospitality values. These expressions were not merely evaluative but also reflected cross-cultural norms surrounding interpersonal warmth, service heritage, and context-specific communication styles. Drawing on Appraisal Theory, politeness theory, and digital pragmatics, this research examined a corpus of 500 English-language hotel reviews to identify how culturally shaped expectations influenced linguistic behaviour in digital evaluation. Using a mixed-method design, the study integrated Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis (ABSA) with qualitative analysis of politeness markers to capture both computational and cultural dimensions of evaluative language. The findings revealed that positive reviews frequently employed intensifiers, affiliative expressions, and appreciation indices aligned with culturally informed perceptions of hospitality and relational closeness. In contrast, negative reviews often contained hedges, mitigations, and indirect formulations that served as face-saving strategies, particularly in discourse influenced by high-context communication norms. Cross-cultural comparisons further showed that Western reviewers tended to express dissatisfaction more directly, whereas Asian and Indonesian reviewers relied more on indirectness and gratitude expressions, illustrating culturally embedded preferences for interpersonal harmony and relational balance. Overall, the patterns indicated that online hotel reviews functioned as cultural artefacts that documented global diversity in hospitality perceptions and culturally mediated interactional behaviour.
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