Effectiveness of User Interaction with ChatGPT: Sociolinguistic Aspects of Politeness

Abstract

Research of the impact of politeness on user interaction with artificial intelligence (AI) is a topical area of contemporary interdisciplinary studies. This article examines the sociolinguistic aspects of politeness as a factor in communication culture from the perspective of its impact on the effectiveness of working with AI, and outlines the significance of linguistic etiquette for digital communication with large AI-based language models. The relevance of the study, on the one hand, is connected with the rapid increase of user queries to artificial intelligence, which is gradually influencing the formation of new models of digital communication and the nature of the system’s responses. On the other hand, it is important to investigate the influence of politeness on user interaction with AI through the Ukrainian language, which broadens the scientific understanding of politeness in human-machine interaction.

To investigate the impact of politeness in prompts on the effectiveness of user-AI interaction, a survey method was used as the primary approach. The method was implemented using Google Forms, a survey administration software from Google. The survey, conducted between 2025 and 2026, involved 176 first- and second-year students of both genders from seven faculties at Vinnitsa National Technical University. Descriptive, comparative and statistical methods were used to interpret the results and analyze the empirical data from the survey. A comparative analysis of the text results generated by artificial intelligence was carried out by several indicators: using phrases of neutral, highly emotive and familiar tone. It was determined that the form of politeness does not radically alter the overall logic of the model or the set of facts. However, the type of strategy and the choice of tone do influence the depth of analysis and the structure of the argumentation. The research findings demonstrated that polite speech constructions of a neutral tone within the structure of prompts indirectly improve the quality of user interaction with artificial intelligence systems, as they facilitate a clearer, more logical and more structured formulation of queries. Polite expressions serve to indirectly specify the communicative intent, which facilitates the interpretation of the query by the language model and enhances the relevance and meaningfulness of the responses.