Gendered Discourse Practices in Instant Messaging Gisela Redeker University of Groningen, The...

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Gendered Discourse Practices in Instant Messaging Gisela Redeker University of Groningen, The Netherlands
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Transcript of Gendered Discourse Practices in Instant Messaging Gisela Redeker University of Groningen, The...

Gendered Discourse Practices

in Instant Messaging

Gisela Redeker

University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Example (1): Instant message exchange (from Lee 2003)

Outline of this Lecture

• Instant messaging as a CMC* genre• Gender differences: conflicting results• Corpus: 60 IM conversations• Topics & Amount of talk• Openings & Closings• Humor & Expressives• Conclusions & future research

* CMC = computer-mediated communication

Instant Messaging as a CMC Genre

IM as a medium– Interactive (unlike websites, blogs)

– Synchronous (unlike discussion lists, email)

– One-to-one (unlike discussion lists, chat)

IM as a mode of communication (usage):– Sustained (friends, colleagues at work)

– Supplementary (+ face-to-face, phone, sms)

Gender Differences

Men Women

Information Social facilitation

Competitive Cooperative

Assertive Qualifying, justifying

More & longer turns Fewer & shorter turns

Short openings & closings Elaborate openings & closings

Sarcasm, teasing, joking Laughter; humorous anecdotes

Strong language Hedges, emotional language

Adversarial Supportive, polite

But:

• Results not always replicated (no difference or reversal)

• Findings depend on familiarity of participants, gender composition, and activity (meta-analysis by Leaper & Ayres 2007)

• This argues against an ‘essentialistic’ view of gender differences and for a social constructionist model.

• Most CMC genres involve mixed-sex groups of strangers

• We need to (i.a.):

– study interactions among friends

– compare same-sex vs mixed-sex interaction

Studies of Gender in Instant Messaging

Baron (2004): 18 same-sex conversations of US undergraduates– Women’s conversations were longer than men’s.– Women took on average 9.8 turns to close a

conversation, men 4.3.– Women used more emoticons than men.– Men used more contractions than women.

Fox et al (2007): 212 same-sex & mixed conversations of US undergraduates– Women used more ‘expressiveness’ features

(emphasis, laughter, emoticons, adjectives).– Messages to women contained more references

to emotion.

Corpus*

• 60 private IM conversations among close friends, solicited from 10 male and 10 female advanced university students (average age: 24)

20 conversations of pairs of male friends20 conversations of pairs of female friends20 conversations of male-female pairs

• Total 21,947 words (min 79, max 1,201),

3,620 turns (min 21, max 181)

* from den Dulk (2006); used by permission

Hypotheses

1. Men use IM for informative, women for social purposes

2. In mixed dyads, men produce more words and more

and longer turns than women; for same-sex dyads, the

difference is reversed (Baron)

3. Men produce shorter openings and closings than

women

4. Men produce more other-directed humor, women more

humorous anecdotes

5. Men use fewer expressions of emotions than women, at

least in male-male dyads (Fox et al)

Variables in this Study

1. Main / initial topic of the conversation (focus

on information or on the other)

2. Number of words and turns, words per turn

3. Openings (use of greeting a/o name)

Closings (number of turns from leave taking)

4. Humor (frequency and kind)

5. Expressives (verbal renderings, emoticons)

Topics

• Focus on relationship with the otherInquire about a known activity or concern of the other (e.g. “How was your exam?”)

• Focus on informationTell news, ask a question, request information

• PlanningPropose or arrange a joint activity

• Women use more relational topics than men in mixed (mf) and female-female (ff) dyads

• Men tend to give or ask information or make plans more often than women in same-sex and mixed dyads

Topic

0

20

40

60

80

100

m in mf mm w in mf ff

proc

ent

relation information planning

Amount of Talk

• No differences in number of words • No differences in number of turns• No gender difference in turn length,

only:

– Men produced shorter turns in mixed than in

male-male conversations (5.3 vs 6.5 words/turn)

– For women, the difference was smaller and not

statistically significant (5.6 vs. 6.4 words/turn)

– Baron (2004) reports 5.2 and 5.3 words/turn

Openings

• No opening (example 2)• Greeting (“hi”; “hey”, “ey” “good afternoon” in example 3)• Name or nickname (“Danny”, “dude” and “mister” in

example 3)

(2) Sara: how did it go???

(3) Jan: hey Danny

Jan: dude

Danny: ey, good afternoon mister!

• Men more often than women add a (nick)name to their greeting, esp. in the male-male dyads

• Both men and women use names less often in the mixed (mf) dyads

Opening

010203040506070

m in mf mm w in mf ff

perc

ent

none greeting name

Closings

• Leave taking “gotta run”, “I’m gonna take a shower”

• Reference to future contact “See you this afternoon!”

• Bye “bye”, “[see y’] later”, “kisskiss”

Example (4) shows a 12-turn closing sequence:

(4) Marlies: hey, but I’ll go take a shower, meeting

someone for coffee in town

Marianne: I’ll have a cup of tea on the couch

Marlies: oh wonderful, in this weather!

Marlies: have a nice weekend! and til Tuesday

Marianne: watching videos, of all my progrms I

haven’t been able to watch this week

Marianne: see you Tuesday

Marlies: oh that’s completely top of course!

Marianne: and have a very nice weekend

Marlies: bye!!!

Marianne: Byye

Marlies: by

Marlies: byee

Female-female dyads produce longer closing sequences than male-male or mixed dyads (= Lee 2003, Baron 2004 for mm vs ff, but Lee 2003 also finds longer closings for mixed dyads)

Length of Closings

0123456789

10

mf mm ff

med

ian

num

ber

of t

urns

Humor

1. Self-directed humor

2. Other-directed humor (teasing)

3. Humor about external referent

These will be illustrated in example (6)

4. Wordplay (example 5)

(5) Jasper: hey Francis pencis

Francis: hey Jasper lasper

TARGET:

(6) Fran: I’m always free on Wednesdays.

Vera: that’s true, aren’t you always free…..:P OTHER

Fran: heehee

Vera: hahah

Fran: the good life SELF

Vera: and hows theo

Fran: rich guy

Fran: heehee

Fran: lets look for a rich guy for you too

Fran: heehjee

Fran: heehee

Vera: yyyyy

Fran: can we go shopping and do fun things together

Vera: yes, he’d be welcome, cause I don’t own a cent SELF

Vera: and drink champagne

Fran: (wink)

Vera: as long as he’s not from heereveen, hahaha EXTERNAL

• Men tend to use more humor than women• Men and women tend to use more humor in

mixed dyads than in same-sex ones

Humor

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

m in mf mm w in mf ff

per

100

turn

s

• Men use more self-directed humor in the mixed dyads (= Lampert & Ervin-Tripp 2006)

• Men and women use more other-directed humor in mixed than in same-sex dyads.

• Men engage in wordplay in the male-male dyads, and less so in the mixed dyads.

Target of Humor

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

m in mf mm w in mf ff

per

100

turn

sself other external wordplay

• Verbal renderings of laughter “haha”, “heehee”

• Interjections “wow”, “oh”, “hmmm”

• Emoticons smile, happy, kidding

laugh or big grin

tongue out, being silly

sad, depressed

Expressive Elements

Expressive Elements

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

m in mf mm w in mf ff

per

100

turn

s

Men and women use more expressive words and icons in the mixed dyads than in the same-sex dyads.

• Men use fewer verbalizations of laughter in the male-male dyads, but as many as the women in the mixed dyads.

• Men and women make much more use of interjections in the mixed dyads.

Laughter and Interjections

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

m in mf mm w in mf ff

per

100

turn

shaha interjections

• Men and women use more smileys than other emoticons (= Baron 2004)

• Men use more smileys in the mixed dyads (= Lee 2003)

Emoticons

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

m in mf mm w in mf ff

per

100

turn

ssmiley other emoticons

Conclusions • Expectations from ‘classic’ gender differences

were confirmed for:– Topic (information vs relation)– Closings (longer for female-female dyads)

• but not confirmed for:– Length (words, turns, turn length)– Humor– Expressives

• The most striking differences were found between the same-sex and mixed dyads:– Longer turns, fewer names in openings, much more

humor, more expressives

• This supports the view that gender is constructed situationally and interactively.

Future Research

• Expand current study

– Other stylistic features (affect, intensifiers, strong

language)

– Topic management

– More material

• Compare to email, sms, phone, face-to-face

• Expand beyond Western college students

– Other cultures, educational levels, ages

ReferencesBaron, Naomi S. (2004). See you online. Gender issues in college student use of instant messaging.

Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23(4): 397-423.Baron, Naomi S. (2008). Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford University Press.den Dulk, Fenja (2006). Gender en het gebruik van humor tijdens informele IM-conversaties [Gender and

the use of humor in informal IM conversations]. Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Groningen, Netherlands.

Fox, Annie B., Danuta Bukatko, Mark Hallahan & Mary Crawford (2007). The Medium Makes a Difference: Gender Similarities and Differences in Instant Messaging. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 26(4): 389-397.

Guiller, Jane & Durndell, Alan (2007). Students’ linguistic behaviour in online discussion groups: Does gender matter? Computers in Human Behavior 23: 2240–225.

Hancock, Jeffrey T. (2004). Verbal irony use in face-to-face and computer-mediated conversations. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23(4): 447-463.

Herring, Susan C. & John C. Paolillo (2006). Gender and genre variation in weblogs. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10(4): 439-459.

Koch, Sabine, Mueller, B., Kruse, L., & Zumbach, J. (2005). Constructing gender in chat groups. Sex Roles 53(1-2): 29-41.

Lampert, Martin D. & Ervin-Tripp, Susan A. (2006). Risky laugher: Teasing and self-directed joking among male and female friends. Journal of Pragmatics 38(1): 51-72.

Leaper, Campbell & Ayres, Melanie M. (2007). A Meta-Analytic Review of Gender Variations in Adults' Language Use: Talkativeness, Affiliative Speech, and Assertive Speech. Personality and Social Psychology Review 11(4): 328-363.

Nardi, Bonnie (2005). Beyond bandwidth: Dimensions of connection in interpersonal interaction. The Journal of Computer-supported Cooperative Work 14: 91-130.

Schiano, D., C. Chen, J. Ginsberg, U. Gretarsdottir, M. Huddleston and E. Isaacs (2002): Teen Use of Messaging Media. Extended Abstracts of ACM CHI 2002 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 594–595). NY: ACM.

Thomson, Rob (2006). The Effect of Topic of Discussion on Gendered Language in Computer-Mediated Communication Discussion. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 25(2): 167-178.