When form deviates from the norm: attitudes towards old and new vernacular features and their impact on the perceived credibility and usefulness of Facebook consumer reviews

Abstract

We investigate the impact of deviations from Standard Dutch in the form of old (e.g. tussentaal) and new (e.g. emoji and chatspeak) vernacular features on consumer perceptions of the credibility and usefulness of Facebook reviews in a 2 (positive, negative) × 2 (old vernacular features or not) × 2 (new vernacular features or not) between-subjects vignette-based experiment with 483 Flemish Facebook users. Additionally, we probe into our respondents' attitudes towards these non-standard features in this setting. While the use of Standard Dutch is evaluated positively and generally associated with the highest credibility and usefulness ratings, there does seem to be a certain tolerance towards non-standard language, especially new vernacular features. Our findings show that the use of old vernacular features, on the other hand, is evaluated rather negatively by our respondents and leads to slightly lower message credibility ratings (compared to strict adherence to Standard Dutch). Source credibility, however, was not significantly influenced by the presence of non-standard language features. While Standard Dutch can be considered the benchmark for written communication in this setting as well, it appears to be acceptable for consumers to be creative and express their emotions via new vernacular features.