The Pragmatic Functions of Questions on Online Inductive Questionnaires for Recommender Systems

• Main Authors: Chiang, Ming-Hsiu, 姜明秀
• Other Authors: Tsao, Feng-Fu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/23818613819797898272

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 語言學研究所 === 101 === Online questionnaires are a common way of marketing. However, most online questionnaires just indirectly gatherinformation.This research aims at improving the lack of interactivity and inductiveness in suchtraditionalquestionnaires. With the use of Web 2.0 technology and inductiveness based onintegrating the pragmatic functions of questions, an inductive questionnaire is thus developed. Question design is based on the Cooperative Principle. Analyzing the forms of discourse used by Confucius, Mencius, Socrates, Zen masters, teachers, and salespeople, the pragmatic functions of questions, presuppositions, and question sequence are clarified, and then applied in this work. The resultsshow that the agenda and epistemic stance of presuppositions influence question sequence. Questions with a broad agenda can initiate a conversation, while questions with narrow onecan be placed at the end of conversation as a conclusion. Epistemic stance decides the degree of doubt. Questions with a stronger epistemic stance have a lower degree of doubt. Moreover, agenda and epistemic stance are interrelated. Questions with a strong epistemic stance also have narrow agenda. Such questions give fewer choices for addressees, and thus havemore imposition. Therefore, inductors with higher social status, such as Confucius and Zen masters, often use questions with a strong epistemic stance to give direct inductions. In the process of induction, the inductors often narrow the agenda as a hinting strategy, and gradually strengthen the epistemic stance to promotetheir ideas. Besides being information propagators like Confucius, Mencius, Socrates, Zen masters, and teachers, salespeople also need to make a bargain with customers. Thus, questions with different pragmatic functions should be integrated into consumer adoption process. In addition, the Politeness Principle is also used to reduce the imposition inherent in such forms of marketing. However, the inductiveness of questionnaire needs to be examined based on statistical data. Thus, based on the topic of a skin test, we compare the inductive questionnaire with atraditional online questionnairewith regard to the two main indexes of“awareness of skinproblems” and “acceptance ofproduct recommendations.” Both questionnaires show that greater “awareness of skinproblems” can effectively increase “acceptance ofproduct recommendations.” Moreover, the inductive questionnaire can more effectively raise“awareness of skin problems” than the traditional questionnaire, and the difference between them is significant. Except for females, the inductive and the traditional questionnaires have no significant differences with regard to“acceptance of product recommendations.” However, in the inductive questionnaire, females are more likely to accept product recommendations than males. People with skin care habits are also more likely to accept product recommendations than people without skin care habits. In addition, people living in urban areas are more likely to accept product recommendations than people living in rural areas. The results show that the inductive questionnaire can generally raise the“awareness of skin problems” and increase “acceptance of product recommendations” of specific groups which are more interested in the focal issue.These results can be referenced by future researchers and marketers who aim to develop inductive questionnaires.