A Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis on whether Gender affects the Discourse on Social Media
We are in a world which is divided by lines of gender, race, class and age. “We also live in a world which is increasingly saturated by the media and information and communication technologies” (Gill, R. 2006). Which is the main reason for why I have decided to write an essay on language and gender. The main outcome I aim to find: Is there a difference in the language male and females use? If so specifically what is different? E.g. who uses more slang? Is there more grammatical errors with men? Do men tend to type longer or shorter tweets? Social Media is becoming a key area in the world of linguistic research and is one of the main reasons why I
…show more content…
want to analyze if gender really does effect the language male or female use on social media. (Herring quote) As the access to the world of Web 2.0 is becoming more demanding to use all over the globe, male and females all over the globe have more forms of access for social media e.g. mobile phones, computers, laptops, tablets and games consoles. In this essay I will be analyzing and gathering analysis from various twitter profiles from public accounts all over the world both equally male and female account users. As the growth of the social media has occurred over the last five years, also has the growth of more voiced opinions being recognized, one being the up rise in feminist activists on social media sites. My main approach is computer mediated discourse, as it directly addresses and answers my question. Some other approaches which I believe maybe plausible to my research is critical discourse analysis which investigates the structures the properties of text and interaction/ communication and finding patterns in the texts which maybe hidden (Van Dijk 1995) e.g. the connotative meaning behind some of Drake’s tweets. Corpus Linguistics will also be another approach I will be looking at, as it’s an approach for identifying the patterns in structure and the use of language with raw qualitative data, also another of my main approaches will be computer mediated communication. Using these three approaches will allow me to closely analyze what is being said through publicly open twitter accounts. The qualitative data will allow me to see in-depth and clear analysis, e.g. whether men use more slang then women or men use more grammatically complex lexical items than women. Computer Mediated Discourse: What is computer mediated communication?
Computer mediated communication (CMC) is a form of communication that takes place between humans through the use of computers (Herring 1996, p.1). This is a new type of language where "Electronic language is characterized by a set of situational constraints which sets it apart from other varieties of English. Messages delivered electronically are neither 'Spoken' nor 'Written' in the conventional senses of these words" (Herring 1996, p.14). This is one of the main complications with CMC as this new mode of English "Nor can be considered strictly written" (Herring 1996, p.14) and on the other hand "They cannot be strictly labelled as spoken messages since the participants neither see nor hear each other" (Herring 1996, p.14). The descriptive language of CMC shows variables of written discourse, as we do type the words although not physically written we still construct words, sentences, phrases by typing whether it be tweeting or blogging. The language rules are mostly abandoned when it comes to CMC, slang tends not to follow the grammar rules of the English language as slang has elements of spoken …show more content…
discourse. Source. 1 In source 1 shows a famous rapper named Drake tweeting “PND ain’t wit the ray tay tay” this reiterates Herring’s approach that CMC can neither be classed as written or spoken discourse, as you can see from the tweet it has elements of spoken discourse including colloquialism, abbreviation and slang which all tend to be classed as elements of spoken discourse.
The elements of written discourse is that the tweet has been typed and is in a written format.
When it comes to gender differences with computer mediated communication on social media platforms, a study from Herring (1996) shows that there is a clear stereotype when it comes to Computer Mediated Communication on social media sites. Herring (1994) said that “Male users are concerned primarily with the exchange of information, while female users send e-mail primarily to promote and maintain interpersonal relationships”. From what I found I believe Herring was correct to a certain extent, but I believe the theory she created was slightly out of date. As media has grown ever so much I believe that women promoting via e-mails is slightly out date, but I think the same theory does applies to social media sites. Where females are promoting and maintaining an interpersonal relationship through social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat, whereas men tend not to promote and maintain as much. The men on social media sites tend to interact to gather information or give off information even with sites like Twitter
and Instagram which I personally think are completely different types of social media sites. (Herring 1996, p.81) “This stereotype is consistent with Tannen’s (1990) claim that men prefer to use language in “report” function and women in the “rapport” function in face-to-face communication, a claim she explicitly extends to CMC (Tannen 1994)” (Herring 1996, p.81)
This is essentially reinforcing the second characteristic as well as stating that a discourse community should provide information and feedback through its means of communication. Sticking with the basketball team example, information and feedback would be given to the players, to critique them. They may have meetings with their whole team or separately with the coach. They’re given constructive criticism by their players and coaches for the betterment of the team.
Discourse communities are groups of people with a unique point of view. There are many discourse communities around your everyday life. These communities are part of the entire human environment. Many discourse communities are distinctly large due to all the societies wanting the same things. My discourse communities are mostly Facebook.
UTEP Blast: A Discourse Community Khaleb King University of Texas at El Paso UTEP Blast: A Discourse Community Introduction A Discourse Community is a group of people that share a set of goals or discourses and within this group, find ways to communicate about these set goals. Discourse Communities can mean having a spot on a sports team, being a part of a school club, and even your workplace can be considered a discourse community. To be accepted into a discourse community, one must be seen as a credible source, one that has knowledge on the topic at hand and can help the group reach the goals of the discourse community.
In recent years, gender differences have already been one of the most controversial issues in various research. As an important communication tool of mankind, language is inevitably involved in controversies. However, Rachel Rafelman, a Canadian journalist and the author of “The Party Line” express her thought and opinion in her essay. She not only have some great points on what and how women and men are likely to talk, but also have different points on the talking environment. She comes up with facts and fit real and particle examples in her essay to make it understood. Whereas, Ronald Macaulay, a professor of linguistics and the author of “Sex Difference” uses words of novels to argue and promotes them as a cause of reinforce to men’s and women’s stereotypes in his essay. He argues through his whole as rebuttal and gives some examples to oppose the preconceived notion of sex differences. Over all, both Rafelman and Macaulay are the good writer but Rafelman is having upper to prove her essay better organized using her tones as per requirement.
Downs, Doug. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth A. Wardle. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 466-78. Print.
In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community,” John Swales describes a discourse community as a group of people that “have a broadly agreed set of common goals, contain certain mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, have acquired a specific lexis, and have a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content discoursal expertise” (Swales #). An example of such a discourse community is the legal profession. The legal profession has the common goal of understanding and applying general principles to particular factual situations. In doing so, lawyers use language, concepts, and methods that are unique to their community. In order to become a recognized member of the legal community, a person must graduate from law school and pass the bar exam thereby demonstrating an in depth knowledge concerning all areas of the law and the specialized rules, methods, and jargon used by lawyers to communicate about legal principles.
A discourse community is a group of people with relatively the same goals and interest to achieve a specific goal. Discourse communities gain there members by qualification, shared objectives, training, or persuading others to join their discourse community. In order for a group to be a discourse community, they must have their own languages, text, rules, and ethics that will make the discourse community run more efficiently. They will also have a form of intercommunication among the group to keep everyone involved or informed with upcoming events or just important news. Discourse communities will have a type of mechanism to provide feedback to help improve the group. The participatory mechanisms provide feedback from inside and outside of
Scouting for a Lifetime Millions… millions of discourse communities exist all around us each and every day. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, and Group Me are just a few of the many examples of the functional discourse communities that our world consists of today. A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses that are agreed upon as basic values and expectations and use communication to achieve set goals. There are six requirements to have a true discourse community. They must include: a community of people who share the same goals, regular communication, steady feedback and advice from one another, at least one means of communication that will assist in achieving an aspired goal, a lexis which is a
The continued advancement of information and communication technologies has virtualized interpersonal communication process in various ways. Initial definitions of Interpersonal Communication indicated that the interaction/s needs to be face-to-face, but now with technological innovations the concept is getting disputed. In terms of dating (within my age group), prevalent usage of dating websites, and phone apps such as Tinder, OkCupid, and Match are normal and standard. In an article published in The Atlantic it stated, “American adults ages 18 to 24 used online-dating sites and apps at an average rate for all American adults—about 10 percent. Since then, that rate has almost tripled. College-aged and post-college-aged Americans are now the most likely demographic to turn to the technology” (Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic.com). The interactions and behaviors of dating using
There have been several discussions that address the differences between male and female language use. These discussions all began with Lakoff’s controversial essays from 1975 that first introduced the concept of “women’s language.” (O’Barr et al 1980) Since Lakoff’s essays, other linguists have sought to address the issue of how gender affects language. O’Barr and Atkins use Lakoff’s information ab...
The relationship of gender and linguistic behavior is a compelling topic which is getting more and more attention since it is closely related to gender studies. It is widely agreed that men and women use language differently in most speech communities, though to various extents (Holmes, 2001). Many works on the topic indicate that gender-specific linguistic behavior is a social practice which is based on gender identities and power relations (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992; Bruckmüller, Hegarty & Abele, 2012).
Our capacity as human beings to acquire and express complex methods of communication has been one of the biggest driving forces of humanity’s success. These complex linguistic systems are what we know as language. Language gives us a method of expressing concepts, emotions, and ideas in a varied way which sets us apart from all other animals. Language and gender is an area of sociolinguistics and related fields which attempt to define the differences in language related to gender, and what the inferences of these differences may be.
The book An Intorduction of Sociolinguistics is an outstanding introductary book in the field of sociolinguistics. It encompasses a wide range of language issues. In chapter 13, Wardhaugh provides a good insight to the relationship between language and gender. He explains gender differences of language-in-use with concise examples. Wardhaugh riases questions about sexist language and guides readers to look closer at how people use language differently because of their own gender in daily life. According to the Whorfian hypothesis, which indicates that the way people use language reflects their thoughts, different genders adapt different communication strategies.
One of the main reasons why social media has positively affected our society is because of how it has made communicating with people much easier. “Today, four out of five active internet users maintain at least one social media profile” (Moe, 3). Using these websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and etc., people talk about everything with anyone from what they are planning to do, also what they are eating and much more (Moe, 24). Also we can also send private messages to other users of these websites about personal m...
“In order to maintain a positive on-going relationship in any difficult face-to-face circumstance, an individual must learn the appropriate socialization rituals. Knowing these rituals and being able to play a proper front stage role is crucial in order for an individual to get along with others (Brignall and Valey, 2005).” With the relatively recent rise of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, the means for maintaining relationships through these platforms rather than speech communication and face-to-face communication are becoming much more apparent and widespread throughout society. However, it is difficult to maintain these relationships without knowing proper social skills especially if these skills are not practiced or introduced to an individual. Although, “Communication frequency and self-disclosure play a role in computer-mediated communication and the formation of online friendships just as they do in face-to-face interactions and offline friendships (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, 2008).” Yet, in our vast digital world that we reside in today, the ways in which we choose to communicate are becoming hindered by our participation in online communication. “We must have a philosophical understanding of the purpose and importance of communication to individuals and based upon this understanding, shape our attitude and value toward the communication process (McFarlane, 2010).” It is extremely crucial to understand communication’s importance and to not tuck the original beliefs and values regarding the tool underneath the rug, resorting and succumbing to communicating poorly in a fashion that mimics what we have now experienced via our devices. “As with any social change, we also believe there is a need to study and understand the impacts that change might have, regardless of whether such changes are viewed as positive or