The Terms of “You(s)”: How the Term of Address Used by Conversational Agents Influences User Evaluations in French and German Linguaculture

Abstract

Background: Conversational agents (CAs) are a novel approach to delivering digital health interventions. In human interactions, terms of address often change depending on the context or relationship between interlocutors. In many languages, this encompasses T/V distinction—formal and informal forms of the second-person pronoun “You”—that conveys different levels of familiarity. Yet, few research articles have examined whether CAs' use of T/V distinction across language contexts affects users' evaluations of digital health applications.Methods: In an online experiment (N = 284), we manipulated a public health CA prototype to use either informal or formal T/V distinction forms in French (“tu” vs. “vous”) and German (“du” vs. “Sie”) language settings. A MANCOVA and post-hoc tests were performed to examine the effects of the independent variables (i.e., T/V distinction and Language) and the moderating role of users' demographic profile (i.e., Age and Gender) on eleven user evaluation variables. These were related to four themes: (i) Sociability, (ii) CA-User Collaboration, (iii) Service Evaluation, and (iv) Behavioral Intentions.Results: Results showed a four-way interaction between T/V Distinction, Language, Age, and Gender, influencing user evaluations across all outcome themes. For French speakers, when the informal “T form” (“Tu”) was used, higher user evaluation scores were generated for younger women and older men (e.g., the CA felt more humanlike or individuals were more likely to recommend the CA), whereas when the formal “V form” (“Vous”) was used, higher user evaluation scores were generated for younger men and older women. For German speakers, when the informal T form (“Du”) was used, younger users' evaluations were comparable regardless of Gender, however, as individuals' Age increased, the use of “Du” resulted in lower user evaluation scores, with this effect more pronounced in men. When using the formal V form (“Sie”), user evaluation scores were relatively stable, regardless of Gender, and only increasing slightly with Age.Conclusions: Results highlight how user CA evaluations vary based on the T/V distinction used and language setting, however, that even within a culturally homogenous language group, evaluations vary based on user demographics, thus highlighting the importance of personalizing CA language.

How Far Can Conversational Agents Contribute to IBD Patient Health Care—A Review of the Literature

“…The application of two filters resulted as follows: first, 22 articles were published in 2020; second, and after selecting health topic as a domain area, 11 articles emerged as a final result. In the end, this material was spread across these different Frontier Journals categories: digital health ( N = 7) ( 20 – 26 ); public health ( N = 2) ( 27 , 28 ); and psychiatry ( N = 2) ( 29 , 30 ). All 11 titles were analyzed through a double review discussion.…”

Language Use in Conversational Agent–Based Health Communication: Systematic Review

“…Among the 6 studies exploring exclusively the language used by CAs, the most interesting and distinctive study analyzes the influence of the CA’s use of formal and informal forms of the second-person pronoun “you”— Tu/Vous (T/V) distinction—across language contexts on user evaluations of digital health applications [ 56 ]. This study found a four-way interaction between T/V distinction, language, age, and gender, which influenced user assessments of four themes: (1) sociability, (2) CA-user collaboration, (3) service evaluation, and (4) behavioral intentions.…”

The Effects of Health Care Chatbot Personas With Different Social Roles on the Client-Chatbot Bond and Usage Intentions: Development of a Design Codebook and Web-Based Study

“…Another considerable share representing 46.8% of all studies analyzed the effects of verbal relational content cues, such as self-disclosures (eg, Ho and Hancock [ 62 ] and Kang and Gratch [ 63 ]) or empathic feedback (eg, Liu and Sundar [ 64 ]). Similarly, 44.7% of the articles investigated verbal style cues, such as the form of address (eg, Bickmore and Picard [ 65 ]), T/V ( tu/vos ) distinction (ie, formal and informal forms of the second-person pronoun “you” [ 66 ]), or paralinguistic and backchanneling cues [ 67 ].…”

“…Verbal style cues are a key aspect for conveying important social and contextual information and, therefore, for facilitating social understanding [ 90 ] and, thus, for the creation of artificial agents [ 53 ]. Accordingly, we included three verbal style cues available to text-based chatbots: form of address, professional jargon, and T/V distinction [ 66 ].…”

“…Similar to the form of address, T/V distinction is considered as another socially deictic cue [ 85 ]. This cue refers to the use of distinct second-person pronouns to denote less (ie, T form, Latin: “ tu ”) or more (ie, V form, Latin: “ vos ”) formality, power, or intimacy, depending on the relational status between two interlocutors [ 66 ]. Accordingly, since the study was conducted among a German-speaking population, the institution and expert chatbot used the German V form “ Sie ,” whereas the peer and dialogical-self chatbot used the German T form “ du .”…”