Gender Differences in the Use of Language in Dating Websites - Research Paper Example

Name: Unit: Date: Title: A report on examination of gender differences in use of language in dating websites Table of contents Name: 1 Unit: 1 Date: 1 Title: 1 A report on examination of gender differences in use of language in dating websites 1 Table of contents 2 1.0 Introduction 3 1.1 Background 3 1.2 Research questions 4 2.0 Literature review 5 3.0 Methodology 7 4.0 Hypothesis 7 5.0 Findings and discussions 7 6.0 Relationship with previous research 12 7.0 Conclusion 14 8.0 References 15 9.0 Appendices 18 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Background Online systems of dating play a significant role in the social lives of the contemporary society. There has been a rapid increase in the category of websites related to online dating (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs 2006). As it is becoming more accepted, online dating still retain a slight negative stigma. With the widespread evidence of its presence and becoming a mainstream, such types of websites are appearing regularly. Sociologists predict that more than 18% of single persons use internet for their dating purposes and there are various perception in regard to long-term relationships or marriages. However, academic research into the use of language in online dating is still scarce (Offen, 2010). The aim of some users of the internet is online dating in order to meet new friends in cyberspace and make online relationships. Some develop internet relationships into friendships while others even advance by turning them into relationships. Online dating sites represent spaces where virtual and actual self are intended be as identical as possible where the self is usually presented in constructs of social interaction, gender and age. They present an opportunity for recording various changes in cultural norms in regard to development of relationships that are mediated by technology and gaining insights to essential aspects of online behaviour which include strategies of self-presentation and gender identity construction (Whitty, 2007). The study of the profiles on online dating provides dimensions to research of gender, identity and relationships in cyberspace. Use of language for both men and women such as use of linguistics features in online dating is influential towards being a crucial issue in study of linguistics. This study was based on investigation of the language, study of differences in gender on online dating sites, gender identities of users, for instance their own presentation in their personal profiles and what they expect in these sites. In particular, consideration of differences in terms of lexical choices is essential while considering that Lakoff (1975) identified differences in gender in her article on Language and a Woman’s Place. In addition, there will be a consideration of such differences in regard to age. During the times of Lakoff, there was publication of research which speculated that women were becoming more equal to men, a condition that made the differences in gender to tend to be less noticeable due to presence of neutralities. It is also important to understand if the profiles content indicate any differences in regard to what is desirable in men and women. From the past studies such as the Lonely Hearts advertisements in newspaper where online dating profiles could be considered in many ways as modern manifestation, it was found out that different genders had the tendency of advertising themselves based on different things. Investigations on such differences in online dating nowadays will be important as well as any other differences discovered. Finally, all this information will be considered in order to consider whether the profiles on online dating provides a notable examples based on use of language differences between genders as well as the possible reasons for such differences if the differences exists. 1.2 Research questions Are there differences in gender based on linguistics features in online dating? Is there difference in regard to what is desirable in men and women? 2.0 Literature review Lackoff (1975) initiated a boom that was grounded linguistically on studies of gender where her articles mentioned “men’s” and “women’s” language by stating their communication style. She realised several lexical and syntactical characteristics that assists in distinguishing of the language used by women from that of men. According to her, women were more likely to use various paraphrases more often than men such as ‘sort of’ and ‘kind of’. This is referred to as hedging. Women also are more likely to use ‘empty’ adjectives which are very common in their speech such as ‘adorable’ ‘gorgeous’ among others. She also realised that women tend to be super-polite, thus using phrases related to politeness such as ‘would you mind....?’ among others. She found out that in comparison to men, women tend to be more apologetic by saying things unlike men who would just present their opinion. Therefore, she realised that women may have a weak and an oppressed position which is opposite to men due to their cagey, cautious and warily language, a declaration referred to as ‘dominance paradigm’. Thus, Lakoff found out that there is a difference in language between men and women while characterising it and language also mirrors the structure of power in a certain society. As Fiore (2004) notes, rapid growth in online dating have shed their stigma as matchmakers towards claiming of an important role in social lives of a large number of people. Fiore add that the normal generation of between 20 and 30 that is common in these sites has been broken to a wider social environment. Researchers has also studied on relationships that are based on online mostly in sociological and psychological perspectives and among younger people (Valkenburg & Jochen, 2007). According to Bereczkei and Csanaky (1996), various studies in evolutionary anthropology and psychology have led to identification of important categories of personal traits such as attractiveness, age, resources as well as commitment to relationship and social and entertainment skills. Pawlowski and Dunbar (2001) were also involved in various investigations of different categories of words in regard to Lonely Hearts advertisements. The results showed that men and women have different levels of importance in various categories which include resources, attractiveness, social skills, sexiness and commitment. It is worth noting that evolutionary theory gives a framework that assists in understanding of the patterns of human mate choice as well as preferred characteristics in the perspective of reproduction (Dunbar et al, 2007). However, the comparison was not strict in regard to people over 50 years of age on placing their advertisement on online dating since the perspective was based on reproduction, a factor that is not in their minds Pawlowski and Dunbar (2001). In Lonely Hearts advertisements, the preferences for men based on five wider categories of traits in order of importance were commitment, attractiveness, social skills, resources and finally, sexiness. In contrast, the preferences for women were commitment, social skills, resources, attractiveness and sexiness. The following table exemplifies the traits related to these categories. According to the two researchers, resources and social skills were rated higher by females than males while, attractiveness and sexiness were rated higher by males than females (Appendix 1: Trait categories). The research in regard to use of language in online dating is still scarce. There is previous research in computer mediated communication based on analysis of pronoun usage (Walther, 2007). More use of pronoun is associated with greater involvement and immediacy with a topic. The semantics as well as vocabulary in regard to online dating has not yet been fully investigated. 3.0 Methodology The data used in this investigation was based on personal profiles which were written by individuals about themselves. The sample is divided into various categories of age in order to make the sample more representative of a wide range of individuals who use dating websites. The data used was gathered from personal profiles on different dating websites where these sites were compared for identification of users on basis of language, gender and age. The sample consisted of different profiles which were divided into different age categories and by gender. The choice of a good the number of sites ensured that the sample was to be large enough to make general assumptions to a certain extent. On the other hand, it has to be small enough in order to ensure that it was manageable in terms of working with it. The sample division into different categories of age was an effort of ensuring that the sample became more representative for various people that use online dating websites and also, it was easier to make comparisons. 4.0 Hypothesis Are there differences in the use of language in online dating personal profiles on basis of gender, and are males and females represented in a different way? 5.0 Findings and discussions Most words used by both genders use words whose spellings are non-standard. Gender markers that are associated with females include ur, yr, u, herself. The female markers are also associated with a large number of terms that are related to emotions. Such terms include love, happy, proud, sad, annoyed, scared, jealous, excited and sick. Most of these terms that are related to emotions are associated with females. In addition, there are also family terms that are gender markers and are associated with females. These include mommy, mom, mom’s, sis, auntie, daughter, grandma, kids, dad, hubs, husband, and hubby. However, there are family terms that are associated males which include bros, brotha, and wife. There are computer mediated terms which are also related to females such as omg and lol as well as question marks, exclamation marks and expressive lengthening such as cooooool. Female markers are also associated with backchannel sounds such as hmmm, ah, grr, ugh. Various terms that are associated with males are mostly sports and technology which include tokens such as 1-10 which usually indicate scoring. In addition, male are usually associated with swear or taboo words such as damn or hell among others which are mostly male markers. Anti-swear word such as darn usually appears as female marker. However, in various online dating websites, most of swear and taboo terms are neural, that is, lacking gender difference. In addition, pure propositions also have no strong relationship with gender (Appendix 2: Linguistic features by gender). Minimal response shows the active participation the other party and it is usually women who take their role as a facilitator. Men on the other hand are less sensitive to the process of interaction. As Woods (1989) noted, women are more into this kind of positive feedback where for them use of such sites is for interactions. Common examples used include uh huh, mmm, right, yea, and yes (Appendix 2). Men are very prone to interruptions mostly as a way of exercising control and power during their online conversations. A man is likely to interrupt a woman many times during the conversation as it is shown below where an interruption is represented by Double slash marks. Leah: That guy’s a riot.... that guy’s // Peter: // crazy Leah: Umm..... I have to // Peter: // look ever after...... There is also a creation of gender differences on basis of initiation contact. Men are more likely to initiate contact in online dating than women. This is either based on attraction or the cost of initiation a contact, for instance the pain of facing a rejection or an effort of putting a message into writing. However, men usually have the courage to initiate a contact more importantly based on their placement in the society, that is, due to perceived role of man in the society as well as in the family. Women act differently from men in regard to preferences such that they become more descriptive in regard to their relationship and partner that they were looking for. Those who are older in age are more specific in regard to the type of relationship that they are seeking and also the type of partner they were dealing with. The younger one on the other hand, tends to use language that allows more openness to different interactions and people (Ellison et al, 2006). Economic as well as income status is important in different online dating websites. Between the ages of 20 to 35, males have the tendency of addressing socioeconomic status and consider it more important in their conservations as compared to females. For the age group that has already established their marriage life or mates that is above 40, the concerns of males in online dating are different as they look for friends. As a result, their messages or conversations are less concerned with economic necessity and social pressure and have little importance on information or conversations that are related to earning capacity than females of the same age group. However, females in any age group were more involved in conversations that show their less willingness to relate with males that have lower social income and those that are not stable in their job. Female of all age groups express their fondness on income as well as social position mates. Their expressions are focused on social status as compared to males. In general, the utterances of the preferences of females are focused on good earning capacity, good family background, ambitious and career oriented, similarity in political background, sociability, rating or favourable social status. However, males also prefer above but less than women. This is in line with previous studies on preferences of partners in dating sites (Shackelford, Schmitt, & Buss, 2005). As the findings show that there is a difference in the use of language between men and women, women tend to be more skilled verbally as compared to men. To women, language and communication matters to them more that it does to men and as a result, women talk much than men. The goal of using language is an important factor in online dating as men tend to get things done while on the other hand, women are more focused on ensuring that they make various connections with other people. As a result men are more focused on facts thus going straight to what they want while on the other hand, women talk more about their feelings. In addition, the use of language for men is a clear reflection of their general interest in maintaining or acquiring status making their language to seem to be competitive while on the other hand, the use of language for women in online dating seems to be cooperative as their preference is more directed to harmony and equality (Sanderson et al, 2007). Men and women in different sites use different ways of phrasing commands. With their direct statements, men also tend to be simple while on the other hand women focus more on couching their commands as a way of including suggestions for action. This is explained in the below example between a male and a female: Female: Mmmm.... home network Male: What home? Female: My home. What’s my home address? R U gonna plug it in? Female: Mmm... How many? Do you need its small? Male: Smallish Male: I like ur staff Female: Like that? Male: Mmmm.... even smaller Female: Smaller? D u wanna put it here? Why don’t you just bite it? The female in this case used to couch her command by using questions (What’s my home address? R U gonna plug it in?) Instead of stating bald commands (Here’s my address. Plug it in, and ‘Put it). As a result, the female opted for indirect approach. Although there is a potential of the internet to adopt the identity of gender neutrality or even to gender-switch, there is major challenge why communications through the internet cannot mask the gender of the originator. This is because there is provision of clear differences in the way language is used between males and females. With various schools of thoughts based on the presence of clear differences in language, there can be a general agreement in regard to what such differences. For the perspective of different languages, the communication in women is more based on fillers and hedges such as ‘you know’ and ‘sort of’, qualifiers, tag questions such as isn’t nice? Or he’s very nice. Based on question tags, women were using tag questions more than men in their messages. For instance: Male: Right now you don’t have a phone....do you? Female: Mmmm... Female: looks good... huh? Male: Mmm.. Female: you didn’t get it, ehh? The females mostly uses her tags as a way of keeping the conversation between them going by showing more attentiveness and by being corporative in order to show that there a frequent concern for her partner during their conversation. 6.0 Relationship with previous research These findings generally give a reflection of previous research. Systemization of the gendered different words into dimensions of expressiveness or towards standard may be very challenging. This is because most of the terms used on online dating are more expressive and are supported by lengthening such as noooo or yesss. Swear of taboo words also naturally come out as expressive and men generally prefer them. Women on the other hand expressively use rejection words still with the same challenge towards standard such as lol and omg. However, use of online dating, the near neutrality of the language or the terms used acts as a way of reducing the previous perspective that; there is a possibility that the language used by men may look superior to that of women. This means that the interactional perspective is most likely to be perceived as more certain and assertive as compared with the past perception (Lackoff, 1975). In addition, women in online dating show validity in its own right and as a result, although there is a difference in gender, the conversational goals of the two may be different. Thus, the conversational goals of the two seem to be different where the females use words that are mostly framed as question and their actions encourage males to speak. This is a way of giving the males more credit. They feel more comfortable through the way they express themselves through online dating as move that make the communication style of males to be seen as a sign of being overly eager, curt and outright rude (Messinger et al, 2008). Men on the other hand are more focused on outcomes and as a result they tend to go straight to the point while they maintain the shortness of their sentences. They are likely to interrupt and challenge, get quickly to the point and make attempts to control the conversation or discussion. In addition, they do not disclose a lot of information and they tend to ask their new friends to have a meeting soon as they make an initial contact (Whitty, 2007). According to Tannen (1994), indirectness can be based on defensiveness and rapport. Based on defensiveness, women tend to convey their information but in a powerless or without authorization. In this way, they use indirect command to endure that their partners get the information. In addition, she decides to use indirect commands as a way of expressing solidarity through questions which provides a benefit of rapport. This to a woman can be seen as a power. On the other hand men tend to be using direct command or authorization command as a feature of power set by the standards of the society where they don’t struggle to be one-upped. It is also important to note that the preference of women for standard forms gives rise to addressing the pattern of stratification of language, in particular across class. The preference for women for “prestige” or standard form is based on the desire or the need to acquire social capital. Men on the other hand tend to pursue “covert” prestige which is offered by variants that are non-standard indexed by “toughness” (Trudgill, 1972). Females may not be using the standard for going up social ladder, but they can be using the standard in order to locate themselves in an unsafe position. This is based on the idea that if there is questioning of non-standard variable, then women would lose social capital. However, use of gender and language in online dating tends to change from seeing use of language in women as a way of claiming the class status, in favour of seeing the preference of women for standard language in terms of deployment and acquisition of symbolic capital (Holmes, 1997). 7.0 Conclusion The language, personality and interests were characteristics that were influenced by online daters while gender differences were characteristics related to online dating. Key aspects of linguistics show the differences in gender as used in personal profiles on dating websites. Females use terms mostly related to emotions and backchannel sounds than men. They both use taboo terms lacking a strong relationship with gender. Women are more indirect, use questions and tag questions mostly as a way of command and showing continuity in conversations while men are more direct and more authoritative in the use of their words. Based on these features and others as explained in the report, there are differences in use of language in dating websites on basis of gender. These genders are represented differently. The participants on inline dating anticipate that their online relationship will be successful. In addition, they perceive these relationships to be interpersonal and real engagements. In future, there is a need for careful consideration of emotional intelligence, socio-demographic characteristics and life effectiveness skills could be of mutual benefit to online dating participants and services. 8.0 References Bereczkei, T, & Csanaky, A 1996, “Mate choice, marital success, and reproduction in a modern society”, Ethology and Socio-biology, vol. 17, pp. 23-35 Dunbar, RIM, Barrett, L, & Lycett, J 2007, Evolutionary Psychology: A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford: Oneworld. Ellison, N, Heino, R, & Gibbs, J 2006, “Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment”, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 415–441. Ellison, N, Heino, R, & Gibbs, J 2006, “Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment”, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 11, pp. 415–441. Fiore, A RT 2004, Romantic Regressions: An Analysis of Behaviour in Online Dating Systems, Master’s Degree thesis: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Holmes, J 1997, “Women, language and identity”, Journal of Sociolinguistics, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 195–223. Lakoff, R 1975, Language and Woman’s Place, New York: Harper & Row Messinger, PR, Eleni S, & Kelly L 2008, “A Typology of Virtual Worlds: Historical Overview and Future Directions”, Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-18. Offen, N 2010, "Sociologists: Internet dating on the rise". The Herald-Sun. February 13, http://www.allbusiness.com/humanities-social-science/sociology/13922241-1.html Pawłowski, B.& Dunbar, RIM 2001, “Human mate choice strategies”. Economic Models of Animal and Human Behaviour, ed. by J. van Hooff, R. Noë & P. Hammerstein, 187-202. Cambridge University Press Sanderson, CA, Keiter, EJ, Miles, M G, & Yopyk, DJA 2007, “The association between intimacy goals and plans for initiating dating relationships”, Personal Relationships, vol. 14, 225-243. Shackelford, TK, Schmitt, DP, & Buss, DM 2005, “Universal dimensions of human mate preferences”, Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 39, pp. 447-458 Tannen, D 1994, Gender and Discourse: Oxford University Press. Trudgill, P 1972, “Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich”, Language in Society vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 179–195. Valkenburg, PM, & Jochen, P 2007, “Who visits online dating sites? Exploring some characteristics of online daters”, Cyber Psychology & Behaviour, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 849-852. Walther, JB 2007, “Selective self-presentation in computer-mediated communication: Hyperpersonal dimensions of technology, language, and cognition”, Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 2538-2557. Whitty, MT 2007, “Revealing the ‘real’ me, searching for the ‘actual’ you: Presentations of self on an internet dating site”, Computers in Human Behaviour, vol. 24, pp. 1707–1723. Woods, N 1989, ‘Talking shop: sex and status as determinants of floor apportionment in a working setting.’ in Coates, J. and Cameron, D. (eds.) 1989. Women in Their Speech Communities, pp. 141-157: Longman. 9.0 Appendices Appendix 1: Trait categories Appendix 2: Linguistic features by gender Females Males Tag questions More than males Use of questions More than males Interruptions More than females Minimal responses More than men Taboo words Equal Equal Non-standard words Equal Equal Standard language More than men Read More