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Identifying Speech Acts in E-Mails: Toward Automated Scoring of the TOEIC E-Mail Task TOEIC

Author(s):
De Felice, Rachele; Deane, Paul
Publication Year:
2012
Report Number:
RR-12-16
Source:
ETS Research Report
Document Type:
Report
Page Count:
62
Subject/Key Words:
TOEIC Writing, Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), E-Mails, Speech Acts, Pragmatics, Workplace English

Abstract

This study proposes an approach to automatically score the TOEIC Writing e-mail task. We focus on one component of the scoring rubric, which notes whether the test-takers have used particular speech acts such as requests, orders, or commitments. We developed a computational model for automated speech act identification and tested it on a corpus of TOEIC responses, achieving up to 79.28% accuracy. This model represents a positive first step toward the development of a more comprehensive scoring model. We also created a corpus of speech act-annotated native English workplace e-mails. Comparisons between these and the TOEIC data allow us to assess whether English learners are approximating native models and whether differences between native and non-native data can have negative consequences in the global workplace.

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