Gendered Discourse Practices in Instant Messaging

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

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

3. 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

4. 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)

6. Gender Differences

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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 friends 20 conversations of pairs of female friends 20 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

10. Hypotheses • Men use IM for informative, women for social purposes • In mixed dyads, men produce more words and more and longer turns than women; for same-sex dyads, the difference is reversed (Baron) • Men produce shorter openings and closings than women • Men produce more other-directed humor, women more humorous anecdotes • Men use fewer expressions of emotions than women, at least in male-male dyads (Fox et al)

11. Variables in this Study • Main / initial topic of the conversation (focus on information or on the other) • Number of words and turns, words per turn • Openings (use of greeting a/o name) Closings (number of turns from leave taking) • Humor (frequency and kind) • Expressives (verbal renderings, emoticons)

12. Topics • Focus on relationship with the other Inquire about a known activity or concern of the other (e.g. “How was your exam?”) • Focus on information Tell news, ask a question, request information • Planning Propose or arrange a joint activity

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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!

16. 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

17. 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:

18. (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

19. 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)

20. Humor • Self-directed humor • Other-directed humor (teasing) • Humor about external referent These will be illustrated in example (6) • Wordplay (example 5) (5) Jasper: hey Francis pencis Francis: hey Jasper lasper

21. 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 lifeSELF 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

22. Men tend to use more humor than women • Men and women tend to use more humor in mixed dyads than in same-sex ones

23. 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.

24. Expressive Elements • Verbal renderings of laughter “haha”, “heehee” • Interjections “wow”, “oh”, “hmmm” • Emoticons smile, happy, kidding laugh or big grin tongue out, being silly sad, depressed

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

26. 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.

27. Men and women use more smileys than other emoticons (= Baron 2004) • Men use more smileys in the mixed dyads (= Lee 2003)

28. 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.

29. 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

30. References Baron, 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.