THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER THROUGH DISCOURSE ON THE SOCIAL NETWORK BADOO: EXPLORING VIRTUAL INTERACTION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/2412-8457/1542Keywords:
chat, cyberpragmatics, discourse analysis, gender, Internet, virtual interactionAbstract
 Nowadays many meetings and conversations take place through social networks. Badoo.com is one of the best known, with more than 102 million users in 2010. This article concentrates on communication through the chat in Badoo between 150 men and the author. The study analyses the main linguistic characteristics in the conversations (orthography, use of capital letters, emoticons and strategies of courtesy and discourtesy) in order to observe how gender is constructed in interaction. The analysis shows that the conversations have characteristics of oral discourse. Moreover, the author prepared five questions as a survey in order to observe what men expected from Badoo, what their values and hobbies were, if they would like to marry and the characteristics they value in women. The analysis of the survey results shows how the participants in the virtual interactions investigated here, negotiate their gender identities.
References
Alexander, R., 2008. Framing discourse on the environment: A critical discourse approach. London: Routledge.
Belson, D., 1994. The network nation revisited [online]. Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken. Available from: http://stage.itp.nyu.edu/_cs97/social_weather/network_nation.html [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Blackledge, A., 2009. Discourse and power in a multilingual world. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Blommaert, J., 2010. The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bruns, A., 2006. Towards produsage: Futures for user-led content production. In: F. Sudweeks, H. Hrachovec and C. Ess, eds. Cultural attitudes towards communication and technology. Perth: Murdoch University, 575–584.
Butler, J., 2004. Undoing gender. New York: Routledge.
Byron, K., 2008. Carrying too heavy a load? The communication and miscommunication of emotion by e-mail. Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 309–327.
Byron, K. and Baldridge, D.C., 2007. E-mail recipients’ impression of senders’ likability: The interactive effect of nonverbal cues and recipients’ personality. Journal of Business Communication, 44, 137–160.
Cameron, D., 1997. Performing gender identity: Young men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In: S. Johnson and U.H. Meinhof, eds. Language and masculinity. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 47–64.
Cameron, D. ed., 1998. The feminist critique of language: A reader. London: Routledge.
Cameron, D., Frazer, E., Harvey, P., Rampton, B. and Richardson, K., 1992. Researching language: Issues of power and method. London: Routledge.
Cameron, D. and Kulick, D., 2003. Language and sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coates, J., 2007. Gender. In: C. Llamas, L. Mullany and P. Stockwell, eds. The Routledge companion to sociolinguistics. Abingdon: Routledge, 62–68.
Danet, B., 1996. ‘Talk to you soon’: Literacy, letter-writing and the language of electronic mail. In: Attending to Technology: Implications for Teaching and Research in the Humanities. Conference, University of Maryland, College Park, 7–9 November. Available from: http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/-msdanet/email.htm [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Espinar Ruiz, E. and González RÃo, M.J., 2008. Jóvenes conectados: Las experiencias de los jóvenes con las nuevas tecnologÃas. RES, 9, 109–124.
Espinar Ruiz, E. and González RÃo, M.J., 2009. Jóvenes en las redes sociales virtuales: Un análisis exploratorio de las diferencias de género. Feminismos, 14, 87–105.
Fairclough, N., 1995. Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London: Longman.
Farr, F.B., 2010. The discourse of teaching practice feedback: A corpus-based investigation of spoken and written modes. London: Routledge.
Garfield, S., 2006. How to make 80 million friends and influence people [online]. The Observer, Review section, 18 June, 6–9. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk.media/2006/jun/18/digitalmedia.observerreview [Accessed 12 June 2012].
Goddard, A. and Patterson, L.M., 2005. Lenguaje y género. Translated from English by S. Molina Plaza. Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla La Mancha.
Grossman, S., 2000. Chatter’s jargon dictionary: Normas de chatiquette [online]. Available from: http://www.stevegrossman.com/jargpge.htm#Chattiquette [Accessed 14 June 2012].
Halliday, M.A.K., 1978. Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold.
Herring, S.C., in press, 2013. Discourse in Web 2.0: Familiar, reconfigured, and emergent. In: D. Tannen and A.M. Tester, eds. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 2011: Discourse 2.0: Language and New Media. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1–25.
Holmes, J., 1994. Improving the lot of female language learners. In: J. Sunderland, ed. Exploring gender: Questions and implications for English language education. London: Prentice Hall, 156–162.
Holmes, J. and Meyerhoff, M. 2003. Different voices, different views: An introduction to current research in language and gender. In: J. Holmes and M. Meyerhoff, eds. The handbook of language and gender. Oxford: Blackwell, 1–17.
Jaffe, J.M., Lee, Y.E., Huang, L.N. and Oshagan, H., 1995. Gender, pseudonyms and CMC: Masking identities and baring souls. In: 45th Annual Congress of the International Communication Association, Albuquerque. Available from: http://research.haifa.ac.il/-jmjaffe/genderpseudocmc [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robinson A.J. and Weigel, M., 2006. Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century [online]. Macarthur Foundation. Available from: http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/download/nwp_file/10932/Confronting_the_Challenges_of_Participatory_Culture.pdf?x-r=pcfile_d [Accessed 22 June 2012].
Jones, Q., 1997. Virtual-communities, virtual settlements and cyber-archaeology: A theoretical outline [online]. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 3(3). Available from: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue3/jones.html [Accessed 11 June 2012].
Jonsson, E., 1998. Electronic discourse: On speech and writing on the Internet [online]. Lulea University of Technology, Department of Communication and Languages, D-Course on English. Available from: http://epubl.luth.se/1402-1552/1998/02/HTML/Electonic Discourse.html [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Jule, A., 2008. A beginner’s guide to language and gender. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Kiesling, S.F., 1997. Power and the language of men. In: S. Johnson and U.H. Meinhof, eds. Language and masculinity. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 65–85.
Kress, G., 2010. A grammar for meaning making. In: T. Locke, ed. Beyond the grammar wars. London: Routledge, 233–253.
Leech, G., 1983. Principles of pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liu, G.Z., 1999. Virtual community presence in Internet relay chatting [online]. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 5(1). Available from: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol5/issue1/liu.html [Accessed 25 June 2012].
Llamas, C. and Watt, D., 2010. Introduction. In: C. Llamas and W. Dominic, eds. Language and identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1–5.
MartÃn Rojo, L. and Gómez Esteban, C., 2007. The gender of power: The female style in labour organizations. In: M.M. Lazar, ed. Feminist critical discourse analysis: Gender, power and ideology in discourse. London: Macmillan, 61–89.
MartÃnez Lirola, M., 2010. Explorando la invisibilidad de mujeres de diferentes culturas en la sociedad y en los medios de comunicación. Palabra Clave, 13(1), 161–173.
Mayans, J., 2002. De la incorrección normativa en los chats [online]. Revista de Investigación LingüÃstica, 5(2), 101–116. Available from: http://www.cibersociedad.net/archivo/articulo.php?art=43 [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A. and Leap, W.L., 2000. Introducing sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Mullany, L., 2007. Gendered discourse in the professional workplace. London: Palgrave.
O’Grady, G., 2010. Grammar of spoken English discourse: The intonation of increments. London: Continuum.
O’Reilly, T., 2005. Web 2.0: Compact definition? [online]. Entry in the blog O’Reilly Radar. Available from: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/web_20_compact_definition.html [Accessed 9 June 2012].
O’Reilly, T., 2007. What is Web 2.0?: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software [online]. International Journal of Digital Economics, 65, 17–37. Available from: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4578/1/MPRA_paper_4578.pdf [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Quinion, M.B., 1996. Only joking? Should the smiley be outlawed [online]. World Wide Worlds, 6 August. Available from: http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/smiley.htm [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Reid, E.M., 1994. Cultural formations in text-based virtual realities [online]. Memoria de Licenciatura, Universidad de Melbourne. Available from: http://www.zacha.net/articles/reid.html [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Renkema, J., 2009. The texture of discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Rubio Liniers, M.C., 2003. La imagen virtual de la mujer: De los estereotipos tradicionales al ciberfeminismo. Feminismos, 2, 167–182.
Ruedenberg, L., Danet, B. and Rosenbaum Tamari, Y., 1994. Virtual virtuosos: Play and performance at the computer keyboard [online]. Electronic Journal of Communication, 5(4). Available from: http://lrw.net/-lucia/pubs/virtual.txt [Accessed 9 June 2012].
Senft, T.M., 2008. Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks. New York: Peter Lang.
Simón RodrÃguez, E., 2008. Hijas de la igualdad: Herederas de injusticias. Madrid: Narcea.
Tannen, D., 1990. ‘You just don’t understand’: Women and men in conversation. New York: Morrow.
Teubert, W., 2010. Meaning, discourse and society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thompson, G. and Muntigl, P., 2008. Systemic functional linguistics: An interpersonal perspective. In: G. Antos and E. Ventola, eds. Handbook of interpersonal communication. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 107–132.
Turkle, S., 2011. Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.
Van Leeuwen, T., 2009. Critical discourse analysis. In: J. Renkema, ed. Discourse, of course: An overview of research in discourse studies. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 277–292.
Vidal Jiménez, R., 2000. La red y la construcción de la identidad [online]. TTC, III. Available from: http://www.cica.es/aliens/gittcus/700vidal.html [Accessed 9 June 2012].
West, C., Lazar, M.M. and Kramarae, C., 1997. Gender in discourse. In: T.A. van Dijk, ed. Discourse as social interaction. Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction. Volume 2. London: Sage Publications, 119–143.
Woods, N., 2007. Describing discourse: A practical guide to discourse analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yus, F., 2001. Ciberpragmática. Barcelona: Ariel.
Yus, F., 2010. Ciberpragmática 2.0. Nuevos usos del lenguaje en internet. Barcelona: Ariel.
Yus, F., 2011. Cyberpragmatics: Internet-mediated communication in context. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
