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Page 1: Gendered language on internet chat rooms. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the

Gendered language on internet chat

rooms

Page 2: Gendered language on internet chat rooms. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the

Chat Rooms

• Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the same time

• Messages appear in a feed that everyone in the chat room can read and respond to

• Gives you the ability to communicate with multiple  people, which differentiates from instant messaging, mainly aimed at ono-on-one communication

Page 3: Gendered language on internet chat rooms. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the

Identifying Gender

• Social networking sites have altered our lives in many ways, including our manner of communication and self-expression

• Impact of gender on linguistic choices of people while chatting• Lakoff (1975) claimed that women use more colour words,

submissive language and tag questions as a result of their insecurity in society which is reflected in social mediums of communication

• Men, according to Fishman (1983), respond minimally as they are socialised that male speech is more dominant where they should wait for women to prompt them

Page 4: Gendered language on internet chat rooms. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the

But is this the case?

Page 5: Gendered language on internet chat rooms. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the

Would you expect this comment to have been written by a man or a woman?

Why?

• As Lakoff suggests in her Deficit Model, women are more submissive to norms and avoid coarse language

• Here the repeated use of swear words suggests that this is therefore likely to be a man typing as he is not afraid to risk his reputation in society

Page 6: Gendered language on internet chat rooms. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the

Would you expect this reply to have been written by a man or a woman?

Why?

• As Lakoff states, women tend to be more apologetic so ‘sorry’ makes us think that this is a woman

• The repeated use of kisses suggest approachability and demonstrate the loving, perhaps more gentle personality associated with women

• Jane Pilkington (1992) believes that women in same sex conversations use positive politeness strategies

Page 7: Gendered language on internet chat rooms. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the

Would you expect this comment to have been written by a man or a woman?

Why?

• Men tend to adhere to ‘lad’ culture and through the use of the term of endearment ‘bud’ usually associated with male speech, it stereotypically suggests that this is a man

• Similarly, ‘beer’ is stereotypically a man’s drink and ‘one too many’ suggests getting drunk which a woman perhaps wouldn’t be so flippant about sharing if it was to be viewed publically

Page 8: Gendered language on internet chat rooms. Chat Rooms Chat rooms are essentially a virtual conference room where online users can write comments at the

As text speak is used alongside technology as it is quicker and easier, both men and women, from what I have found, seem to express opinions and ask questions very similarly in short-hand, brief ways, therefore making it difficult to differentiate between a man and a woman’s comment

However, as seen on the previous slides, habits associated with the different genders can’t help but emerge online thus making it easy to tell the gender of a writer through their vocabulary, sentence length and use of punctuation


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