Abstract
Grammarly’s Tone Detector is included in the free version of the application and is available for major phone and computer program platforms. Its strength is in helping students compose pragmatically appropriate texts which could substantially increase their confidence and the feeling of autonomy. It accomplishes this by providing writers with tone indications of their text paired with emojis to help navigate the sometimes opaque waters of pragmatics. However, this tool does not provide indications of which words or phrases contribute to an indicated tone, nor does it offer suggestions for improvement. It is a perpetual beta tool in that it asks for user input to continually adapt and learn to the changing communicative situation. Although there are some areas for improvement, it is a useful tool that teachers could recommend to their students to support their ability to raise their confidence about the pragmatic appropriateness when writing emails and other texts where pragmatics are important.
Introduction
Grammarly’s Tone Detector (TD) helps students compose pragmatically appropriate texts which could substantially increase the feeling of autonomy, especially in the contexts of the internationalization of institutions or transnational higher education where English-medium instruction (EMI) is employed. The internationalization of institutions of higher education from inner-circle, English-speaking countries, like the United States and United Kingdom (Kachru, 1992), has been increasing. This process involves ‘integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education’ (Knight, 2003: 2). A common form of internationalization in higher education is through the establishment of transnational higher education programmes (Kosmützky and Putty, 2016). Students in these contexts often compose emails in English to communicate with their professors. Since email allows students to contact their teachers even when internet access is limited (Blake and Guillén, 2020), it has become a primary means of communication in higher education (Winans, 2020). The ability to write pragmatically appropriate emails could affect these interpersonal relationships (González-Lloret, 2019), so students and ‘individuals all over the world nowadays need to learn how to be pragmatically appropriate in contexts that have emerged in the current era of globalization’ (Sánchez-Hernández and Herraiz-Martínez, 2018: 10). In addressing this need, especially in contexts where language learners might still need support, Grammarly’s TD provides generalized feedback about a text’s pragmatics.
Overview
Grammarly can be accessed in many ways. This evaluation used an extension on the Chrome browser on a Windows computer. It can also be downloaded as an extension for the Safari, Firefox, and Edge browsers. In addition, there are applications for computers running the Windows operating system (OS), MacOS, and Chromium, Google’s Linux-based OS. For smartphones, users can download a keyboard for both iOS and Android. Grammarly’s broad claim is that it helps users ‘compose bold, clear, mistake-free writing with Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistant’ (Grammarly, 2020). However, this technology review will focus on Grammarly’s TD rather than its full suite of tools.
The TD is a beta feature that indicates a pragmatic approximation of the text with an emoji, a textual explanation, and an intensity rating for a given tone. Surprisingly, it only needs 120 characters to provide a tone evaluation (Grammarly, 2020).
Tone Detector.
Tone Detector emojis and textual indicators.
To make a tone indication, Grammarly analyses ‘word choice, phrasing, punctuation, and even capitalization’ in order to identify the top tones of your text (Grammarly, 2020).
Along with emoji and textual explanation, tones also include an intensity bar to indicate how, for example, ‘friendly’ or how ‘formal’ the text appears. Confident users can give feedback by indicating their own feeling about a given tone and intensity by answering the question, ‘Which tones did we get right?’ (
Tone Detector with ability to give feedback.
Reflection
The TD and its indications allow this tool to be useful for anyone developing their sense of pragmatic appropriateness of a text or email. Teachers might recommend that students download the free version of Grammarly for the TD which could encourage students to communicate via email when they have issues outside the classroom. If students feel more confident in their ability to write pragmatically appropriate emails, they might communicate with their teachers when they need help. This could increase student success and reduce teacher workload by supporting students when they are engaged in language learning beyond traditional settings.
Although Grammarly may indicate the tone of the email, it does not provide feedback on how to change the pragmatics of a text, for example, from ‘formal’ to ‘informal’. The onus is on the user to understand which features create an undesirable tone. Feedback does not indicate which words or phrases should be the focus of revision, which also presents challenges. Providing feedback could illuminate text that influences tone, so appropriate revision can occur. Tones meeting the writer’s expectations provide less confident language users with positive feedback, increasing autonomy, especially when writing emails.
With increased confidence and autonomy, users can start to provide feedback to the system which would influence future tone indications. Confident users providing pragmatic feedback and evolving pragmatic perceptions support the findings of Winans (2020), which found that, even when those students who do not use politeness strategies to the same extent as those who use English as a first language, their emails are often not seen as impolite. He raises the question as to whether the internationalization of teacher and student populations has evolved perceptions of pragmatic appropriateness. Since the TD allows for this type of participation, regardless of language background, the tones indicated are applicable to a wide array of contexts.
Conclusion
The TD has challenges with some nuanced language use, but it is useful for students while being a work-in-progress. The status of ‘work-in-progress’ is a positive one because language is constantly evolving, so tools reflecting this reality take time to respond. In the contexts of internationalization of institutions and transnational higher education where EMI is employed, the TD provides a support system, so less-confident students can compose texts that meet pragmatic expectations for appropriateness. In this way, users gain a sense of autonomy and confidence with the pragmatic feedback about their texts provided by real-time tone indications.
