Rant or rave: variation over time in the language of online reviews

Abstract We examine how the language of online reviews has changed over past 20 years. The corpora we use for this analysis consist reviews, each which is paired with a numerical rating. This allows us to control perceived sentiment review when examining its linguistic features. Our findings show that have become less comprehensive, and more polarized intense. further analyzed two subgroups understand these trends: (1) labeled “helpful” (2) posted by persistent users. These trends also exist helpful (albeit in weaker form), suggesting nature as changing. A similar pattern can be observed users, are not simply associated new users but represent changes overall user behavior. Additional Booking.com indicates may reflect increasing mobile devices, whose interface encourages briefer reviews. Lastly, discuss implications readers, writers, reviewing platforms.