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.
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