Sociolinguistics

Danbi Jang, Tomoe Murata, Mayu Yamamoto, Gale Nickels

This research study investigates how young men and women in relationships react toward typos and seeks to identify any differences. Based on previous research findings, we hypothesized that women are more likely to retype typos compared to men since men have been shown to communicate primarily for practicality, while women have been shown to put more social importance on texting. An alternative hypothesis we investigated was that as the intimacy levels and mutual understanding increase within the relationship, both partners prefer to leave typos uncorrected. To test these hypotheses, participants were asked to fill out a survey, asking about the length of the texting and relationship periods, how close they think they are with their partner, and what they prefer to do when they make typos. They were also asked to share screenshots of typos where they misspelled a word. The results indicated that women had a higher rate of correcting typos than men, which supported our hypothesis; however, the difference was not substantial enough to make a conclusion. We did find, however, that intimacy levels had a much stronger correlation with typo correction likelihood. Thus, the main finding of our study is that intimacy is the best factor in predicting whether the person corrects or leaves typos in relationship-based text messaging, not gender.

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Introduction

There is no doubt that texting is the dominant form of written communication of our age. Depending on who you ask, by comparison, emailing and letter-writing seem formal at best, and antiquated at worst. Young adults between 18 and 24 are estimated to send about 110 texts per day (Smith, 2019), which is reflected in endless pop culture references to mobile phones and SMS. For instance, Lana Del Rey in “Take Me to Paris” sings, “Text me when you get home safely,” summarizing one of many social rituals that have arisen from text communication. Texting is a key daily ritual in most communities all over the world.

However, unlike face-to-face communication, texting achieves something unique: documentation. The recipient of a text can take a screenshot and collect ‘receipts’ at any moment, so it is more important than ever that the social face a text communicates is exactly as intended. Another example of this in the music industry is presented by Drake in “H.Y.F.R:” “…That’s when I text (sic.) her and told her I love her, then right after texted and told her I’m faded,” demonstrating how accountability in texting can be circumvented by claiming lack of sobriety and other means. So, texting conveys many layers of nuance and social significance that might not be apparent at first glance. However, texts are shot back and forth so quickly that a problem often arises: typos. They can usually be quickly remedied by retyping the offending word with an asterisk appended, but even the act of correcting a typo holds implications. For instance, leaving a typo can be perceived as comedic or aloof, while retyping it might convey earnestness or carefulness. This led us to question if certain people are more likely to correct or leave typos depending on their individual traits. Specifically, we targeted the groups that are thought to text each other most frequently: couples.

When discussing romantic dynamics, gender is often a key focus of previous research. In the past, it has been shown that in text messages, females tend to emphasize visibility while males emphasize utility (Ilie et al., 2002). This indicated that women are inclined to organize their messages in such a way that their meaning and intentions are best conveyed. Another research study found that women have been seen to use texts as a means of promoting and maintaining social relationships at a higher level than men (Aning & Yaa, 2022). If it is true that women tend to place more emotional and social importance on texting than men, this may be a reason for them to take errors more seriously and cause them to retype. Thus, we hypothesized that women are more likely to retype or correct mistakes than men when they make a typographical error in a text message.

However, we found it important to explore possibilities outside of gendered explanations as well. Our alternative hypothesis is that as the level of intimacy within a relationship increases over time, both partners correct less frequently. We predict this may be the case as over time, couples might have a better understanding of each other’s texting style, leading to a higher threshold for typos needing clarification. Also, as the relationship progresses, couples have had time to adjust and feel more comfortable within the relationship. Thus, we approached addressing these two hypotheses with a specific question in mind: Is gender a good predictor of typo correction in texts between couples?

Methods

To investigate those hypotheses, we targeted a population consisting of men and women in their early 20s who are in a romantic relationship. Another criterion was that they text their partners in Standard American English every day; however, it was not a requirement that English be their first language. We specified the age as 20s and the language as Standard American English to narrow our population to Generation Z and Millenials, as these are the groups that have had the most exposure to digital communication in their lifetimes. Additionally, this research study chose to target heterosexual, gender-conforming couples. This limitation might have been a source of selection bias; thus, we recognize that the patterns we find within these pairings may not translate when extrapolated to couples outside of this binary. Exploring outside of this subpopulation with regard to romantic texting trends may be an interesting candidate for future research.

We recruited the participants by posting the survey on the UCLA Linguistics Discord server, Instagram stories, and Slack chats with students at UCLA. The way of gathering responses on listed social media is considered to be the most effective since our targeted population is the young generation. For the data collection, we utilized a multi-faceted strategy similar to that which is employed by Wagner et al. (2022). The total data set we collected included 22 responses: 10 from males and 12 from females. First, participants were given a survey that collected information about the length and nature of the relationship, as well as open-ended questions about their reactions to their typos. Next, they were asked to submit one or more screenshots where they made a non-grammatical spelling mistake, corrected or otherwise, as shown in Fig 1. We defined a typo in this research as an unintentional misspelled word, not a grammatical typo. Intentional errors for the sake of showing cuteness or aloofness towards their partner were also excluded. It is possible that the nature of the messages could have affected the content of our data. That is, participants might have excluded typos that were particularly embarrassing, which might lead to biased data; however, for the purposes of this study, we considered this to be potentially beneficial for targeting the social aspect of typo correction instead of the practicality aspect.

Particularly embarrassing typos may include big spelling mistakes that are incomprehensible and thus must be corrected for the message to be understood. If these sorts of typos are less likely to occur, we speculated that the collected data might be of better quality. Thus, the omission of embarrassing responses was not mitigated in the data collection process.

Results & Analysis

From our 22 participants, we collected a total of 25 screenshots: 14 from women and 11 from men. Two excerpts of these screenshots from our data are shown in Figures 2.1 and 2.2.

In addition, since all respondents indicated they are texting in standard English, all responses are included in the analysis. The participant responses to each question varied widely, suggesting a diverse range of intimacy and familiarity levels within our participant pool. Participants ranged from 11 to 96 months of knowing their partner, 6 to 96 months of dating, and 3 to 96 months of texting.

First, to test our first hypothesis that women are more likely to retype or correct errors than men, we began by analyzing the responses of each gender.

Figure 3 above shows the percentages of responses to the question about whether or not to correct the typos in the survey for males and females, respectively. As the figure shows, 58% of women correct typographical errors, while 40% of men do so, suggesting that women are more likely to correct typographical errors and seemingly supporting our hypothesis. However, given that the difference between the gender is only 18% and that more than 40% of women leave misspelled words as is, it may not be sufficient to conclude that it is a strong predictor. Thus, we decided to test whether intimacy level is a good predictor, as predicted by our second hypothesis.

To test whether the more intimate one feels, the less likely one is to correct a typo in a message; we obtained correlation coefficients. Because the period of knowing each other, dating, or texting may be more strongly correlated with typo correction than the intimacy with the partner, they were also included as variables in addition to intimacy. The correlation coefficient between gender and typo correction is also calculated. For the analysis of the correlation values, a positive value signifies that an increase in one variable increases the other variable, and if the value is negative, an increase in one variable decreases the other variable. Furthermore, the closer a value is to positive or negative 1, the stronger the correlation is.

Figure 4 summarizes the correlation coefficients of each variable to typographical correction. First, a moderate negative correlation with a coefficient of -0.4 was identified between self-reported intimacy levels and the likelihood of correcting typographical errors. In other words, as intimacy increases, the likelihood of correcting typos decreases or vice versa, which supports our second hypothesis. Now, our remaining question, whether gender is a valid predictor of the likelihood of correcting typos, turned out to be largely uncorrelated since the coefficient is -0.18, although these two are indeed negatively correlated and better predictors than the length of the relationship, period of texting, and how long it’s been since they met each other.

Discussion and conclusions

After finding the correlation coefficients for our variables, we saw that gender was not actually a very good predictor of the likelihood of correcting typos. While it was a stronger predictor than the length of the relationship and how long it has been since they met each other, it is still very weak.

So, we concluded that our second hypothesis, that intimacy would be a better predictor of typo correction likelihood, was better supported. We found a moderate negative correlation between self-reported intimacy levels and the likelihood of correcting typos. That is, the more intimate a partner rated their relationship, the less likely they were to correct a typo. This finding makes sense in the context of prior research, which has shown that as romantic relationships develop, linguistic behaviors become more similar between couples. So, this could suggest that time allows for an increased understanding of language between partners and conversations that reflect a common outlook (Brinberg & Ram, 2021). The relationship between self-reported intimacy and the correction observed in our study suggests that the need for clarification over typos may have decreased as a result of an increased understanding of each other’s language.

Furthermore, these findings show us that the subtleties and subconscious behaviors we exhibit around our romantic partners are not static. The way we text in a relationship likely has much more to do with the person we are texting and how comfortable we are than any one personality trait. Also, thinking back to the findings of previous studies, our results suggest that the “rules of texting” that Wagner et al. proposed (2022) might not apply accurately to longer-term couples, as our findings imply that the implicit social behaviors that Wagner et al.’s rules define might change as intimacy levels grow.

References

Aning, E., & Bediako, Y. A. (2022). Gender differences in Short Message Service texts among Sandwich students: a Sociolinguistic Analysis. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 27(1), 48–56.

Brinberg, M., & Ram, N. (2021). Do new romantic couples use more similar language over time? Evidence from intensive longitudinal text messages. Journal of Communication, 71(3), 454–477. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqab012

Ilie, V., Van Slyke, C., Green, G., & Lou, H. (2005). Gender differences in perceptions and use of communication technologies. Information Resources Management Journal, 18(3), 13–31. https://doi.org/10.4018/irmj.2005070102

Smith, A. (2019). How americans use text messaging. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2011/09/19 /how-americans-use-text-messaging/

Wagner, T., Punyanunt-Carter, N., & McCarthy, E. (2022). Rules, reciprocity, and emojis: An exploratory study on flirtatious texting with romantic partners. Southern Communication Journal, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/1041794x.2022.2108889

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Jakob Franco, Juan Salcedo, Krystal Quinto, T. Singh

Our research group entered this project seeking to gain clarity on the continued reception of a controversial topic within modern Spanish, the use of gender-neutral suffixes for some traditionally gendered nouns and pronouns. Perhaps most famously within the United States, the term “Latinx” has become a cultural lightning rod in relation to ongoing debates about the progression of social activism (Higa & Dunham, 2022). However, the Spanish language community is far from a monolith, with grassroots movements in multiple Latin-American countries seeking to make the grammatical change as well (Lankes, 2022). We began our research then seeking to assess the rates of use for these terms, particularly in informal settings, as well as to directly gauge opinions on the subject through a variety of survey methods. Ultimately, we also wanted to assess trends within the backgrounds of those who did or did not use these terms to see if these rates correlated with sociodemographic data or opinions on other social issues. Our data provided a nuanced picture that both confirmed many of our predictions about the backgrounds of our research participants, especially in regard to age and political affiliation, but confounded others. The data bore out a fairly strong consensus against adopting the gender-neutral suffixes.

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Introduction & Background

In recent years, the topic of gender neutrality within the Spanish Language has been a major point of contention as well as the terms used to describe Latin American communities. Spanish is a gendered language currently with a masculine default, but some individuals have proposed alternatives such as replacing the masculine suffix -o for neutral terms with an -x or -e. Proponents of such a change argue it would help promote inclusivity and challenge embedded patriarchal norms while opponents suggest it is unnecessary or even harmful to the preservation of Spanish as a whole. This topic has been the focus of much controversy to the point where gender-neutral Spanish was entirely banned by the government of Argentina (Lankes, 2022). This podcast from Vocal Fries elaborates on the history of gender neutral Spanish in Argentina and its recent controversy: (Gillon & Figueroa, 2018). The goal of this study was to investigate individual attitudes towards gender-neutral Spanish as well as gather input on the actual use of gender-neutral Spanish. This was achieved through a survey of 122 individuals of varying backgrounds and an analysis of Spanish meme accounts in social media. We hypothesized that older individuals and individuals on the right of the political spectrum would be more likely to have negative attitudes towards gender-neutral Spanish and its use. In the following section, we will take a deep dive into the two methodologies that served as the backbone of this research project.

Methodology

Survey

We created a survey using Google Forms, consisting of four separate sections. The first section consisted of collecting background information on the respondents such as their age, education level, gender identity, political ideology, social media usage, etc. The second section inquired about their language background and familiarity with Spanish and gender-neutral Spanish. The third section used the likert scale to assess different opinions on gender-neutral Spanish. In this section, respondents were provided with five different statements and were then asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement on a 1-5 scale. Finally, the respondents were provided with a text-entry box with no limit and were encouraged to share their thoughts on gender-neutral Spanish. This was done in order to collect more detailed opinions on this nuanced matter in order to ensure that opinions outside the scope of the survey questions would be accounted for. The survey we created and utilized for this study can be found in Appendix A of this paper.

This survey was distributed across two different social media platforms: Instagram and Reddit. The majority of the respondents came from Reddit where this survey managed to gain some traction. Additionally, less than 5% of the respondents were friends and family members whom the survey was distributed to as well. In total, we collected 122 responses to our survey.

Memes

We set about finding memes relevant to our survey respondents as well as within the online Spanish community as a whole. As such, we looked for Spanish language meme accounts on these platforms which had at least 10,000 followers, were active within the last month, and were Latin American based. This last parameter helped limit the scope of Spanish varieties we encountered and reflected the background of our survey respondents more closely. We ultimately found 20 accounts across the aforementioned platforms which met our criteria. Then for each of these accounts, we analyzed the first 20 posts of theirs that contained nouns or pronouns which referred to individuals of an unspecified gender. These are the types of words which would be traditionally gendered as masculine that proponents of “Lenguaje Inclusivo” (or Inclusive Language in English) argue should be altered to include a gender-neutral suffix. We then took note of the appearance of gendered or neutral suffixes in these select posts for each account. We classified loan words that fit the same use case within a separate category as well. Qualitatively, we also took notes on the general content of the accounts to help with later comparisons in relation to their rates of gender-neutral suffix usage.

Results & Analysis

Survey

The overall response to the survey was overwhelmingly negative with respondents being quite upset that this survey was even being conducted in the first place. This resulted in our respondents being very vocal in stating their opinions and many even left very detailed thoughts on the matter in the text-entry section. The data we collected was analyzed in two different ways: firstly, Google Forms provides statistics for each question; it generates graphs and charts for each question and provides a percentage breakdown for the responses to each question. Secondly, we downloaded and exported all of the responses into an excel spreadsheet, which we then filtered for various different factors in order to find correlations in the data. In the following few sections, the results will be broken down and discussed section by section:

Section 1: Background Information

64.8 % of our respondents were aged 19-29. This was followed by 30-39 year-olds who comprised 14.8% of respondents. Following closely behind this age group, were 1-18 year-olds who made up 13.9% of respondents. 40 and up respondents were in the minority. 57.4% of our respondents were male, while 33.6% were female. The rest were comprised of non-binary individuals and those that preferred not to answer. The education levels were varied, but the majority of respondents had a higher education background of some sort. When it came to political ideology, almost 50% of respondents identified as either left or far left, while 26.4% self-identified as centrists/moderates. We had initially predicted that right-leaning individuals would be more likely to oppose gender-neutral Spanish, while left-leaning individuals would be more in favor of it. This turned out to not be the case at all; our data analysis revealed that out of 68 left-leaning respondents, 40 respondents had a strongly negative or negative opinion towards gender-neutral Spanish – a staggering 58.8%. In comparison, exactly 50% of individuals who self-identified as right-leaning had a strongly negative or negative opinion towards gender-neutral Spanish. In other words, left-leaning individuals were actually 8.8% more likely to be in opposition to gender-neutral Spanish, completely in contrast to what we had originally hypothesized. This will be discussed further in later sections.

Section 2: Language Background & Familiarity with Gender-Neutral Spanish & Terminology

A total of 91.8% of our respondents were Spanish speakers with more than 75% identifying as intermediate and up in fluency. 25.4% of these speakers self-identified as being native Spanish speakers. However, given that only 27.9% of the respondents said that Spanish was their first language growing up, approximately 6 of these respondents were most likely heritage speakers. When it came to having heard of gender-neutral Spanish, 73% of respondents said they’d heard of the term and 82% said they’d heard of the term “Latinx”. 12.3% had heard of gender-neutral Spanish and 9% “Latinx”, but weren’t sure what these terms meant. Out of all of our respondents, only 23% said they’d used gender-neutral Spanish, while 77% claimed to never have used it. Those that did use it, primarily used it on social media. Finally, 50% of all respondents said they had a strongly negative opinion of gender-neutral Spanish, while only 9.8% said they had a strongly positive opinion.

Section 3: Statement Assessment

In this section, respondents were provided with 5 different statements relating to gender-neutral Spanish and its usage and were then asked to assess whether they strongly disagreed with the statement (a rating of 1), or strongly agreed with it (a rating of 5). A rating of 2 was “disagree”, 3 was “neutral”, and 4 was “agree”. 73.8% of respondents expressed that they did not believe that regular gendered Spanish promotes harmful stereotypes that favor one gender over the other. 54.1% of respondents actually felt that gender-neutral Spanish is degrading to the original language and culture. 69.7% disagreed with the sentiment that it’s easy to make the switch to using gender-neutral Spanish. 69.6% of respondents expressed that they would not prefer to speak a gender-neutral version of Spanish over gendered Spanish.

The sentiments expressed in the fourth section of the survey will be discussed in the discussion section.

Memes

Our data for the meme pages largely lined up with that of our survey responses discussed above but with some key divergence. Only three out of the 20 accounts we looked at, or 15%, ever used gender neutral suffixes in their posts. Of these three accounts, two used exclusively gender neutral suffixes and the last one used the gender neutral terms twice as often as gendered forms. This suggests individuals will generally commit to using the neutral form almost exclusively if they use it at all with the large majority of individuals never doing so.

Interestingly, the two accounts which used gender neutral loanwords from English never used a neutral suffixed Spanish.

While we could not collect substantial demographic information about the administrators of the social media accounts themselves due to their predominantly anonymous nature. However, we could look at the content of their posts to see if certain subject matter correlated with a greater likelihood to use gender neutral suffixes. We found that two of the accounts which used gender neutral suffixes engaged in political discussions supporting left politics within their meme posts such as @pelaeldiente on Instagram. While our survey suggests that the political left holds even worse opinions of gender neutral suffixes than the right, the meme accounts suggest they are more likely to include it in their language.

Discussion

Today, the US recognizes people who are non-binary as an official gender option on a federal level. Inclusivity is a term that can be difficult to define, but Díaz et al. (2022) define an inclusive language as, “’Inclusive’ of many (disenfranchised) communities across the intersections of gender-orientation, race, ethnicity, ability, religion, age, social class, etc. For this reason, many scholars have committed to advocacy of gender nonconforming communities, particularly, trans and non-binary subjects, prefer the use of the term “non-binary” (lenguaje no binario) or “gender neutral” language…” (p. 4). However, Real Academia Española does not acknowledge more than two genders in the language. The adoption of gender neutral Spanish would need the support of a large swath of Spanish speakers at all levels of society to take hold and our data suggests this coalition remains a distant possibility at the moment. Additionally, ethical concerns regarding this topic remain as well with Salinas (2020) writing “Latinx might be unpronounceable for some people of Latin American descent” (p. 153). Perhaps there is a way to become more inclusive, but Salinas argues to take into consideration whether the people of that region can even pronounce Latinx, as it does not follow morphological or phonemic rules of the language.

In the fourth section of the survey, respondents were given the opportunity to express their thoughts on gender-neutral Spanish and the pervading sentiment was that gender-neutral Spanish is “a push by white academics onto a culture who doesn’t want it,” and that it is nothing but another attempt at linguistic imperialism. One respondent said, “As a latino, I find latinx to be one of the worst things to come out of academia and is a barrier to having the broader latino community embrace progressive ideas.” Yet another respondent said, “‘Latinx’ is a colonialist, classist solution dreamt up by white people speaking on behalf of minorities.” Many respondents also questioned why there’s so much focus on incorporating gender-neutrality into Spanish when the same is not true for other gendered languages such as French. Proponents of gender-neutral Spanish expressed concerns over the suffix “x” and expressed a need for better alternatives that make more phonological sense for Spanish speakers.  You can watch this tik-tok to hear more opinions on this divisive subject.

Examining the responses of non-binary individuals to the survey reveals that even this community remains divided on the subject. Of the 6 non-binary respondents to the survey, they were evenly divided in holding positive or negative views of gender-neutral Spanish and most do not use it in their everyday lives. This spread of opinions does not provide a clear mandate in favor of gender-neutral Spanish but also shows a higher level of support than among the general population. Some scholars such as Bonnin and Coronel (2021) argue, “The use of gender-neutral forms, and even of languages with less gendered grammar, helps women to overcome stereotyped gender roles and develop as active agents in institutions” (p.1). However, this sentiment only holds true if the change itself is received well by the populations it attempts to support and not as a performative intrusion. Further research into the role gendered language plays in gender roles and stereotypes within society remains necessary, especially to assess how these opinions continue to shift over time.

Conclusion

Overall, the question of whether the Spanish language, and perhaps other gendered languages, may function, or merely be accepted, as a more gender-inclusive language remains inconclusive. As the data from our surveys demonstrates, attitudes towards changing the Spanish language to be gender-neutral remain resistant and largely skeptical of whether it is even necessary. Surprisingly, negative attitudes towards the topic arose regardless of demographic, contrary to our hypothesis that individuals with political ideologies that are more left-leaning would be more likely to gravitate towards gender-inclusive language which would seemingly aid in neutralizing harmful gender stereotypes. It seems that other concerns were voiced by survey participants that justified moving away from changing the language in its entirety, from concerns that terms like “Latinx” could be viewed as a form of linguistic imperialism and thoughts that for the language to change the culture must change first. Our research done in social media reflects similar perspectives with gender-neutral Spanish suffixes being utilized by only three of the social media accounts we studied. So although the world seems to be progressing towards being more gender-inclusive, feelings towards language change are passionate and as of now, at least in the Spanish language, the majority of speakers are not inclined to change the language, especially if they aren’t the ones deciding the changes.

References

Bonnin, J. E., & Coronel, A. A. (2021). Attitudes toward gender-neutral Spanish: Acceptability and adoptability. Frontiers in Sociology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.629616

Diaz, A. R., Mejía, G., & Villamizar, A. G. (2022). Gender neutral and non-binary language practices in the Spanish language classroom: Tensions between disciplinary and societal changes. L2 Journal, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.5070/l214356302

Ehrlich, S., & King, R. (1992). Gender-based language reform and the social construction of meaning. Discourse & Society, 3(2), 151–166. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42887784

Galvez, A. (2022). The Journey to a Consensus of Gender-Neutral Language in Spanish: Does -x

Really Mark the Spot? . Journal of the Student Personnel Association at Indiana University,

48–56. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/jiuspa/article/view/34412

Gillon, K. & Figueroa, M. (1 October 2018) “TODOS/TODAS/TODES ADDENDUM” In Vocal Fries. https://vocalfriespod.com/2018/10/01/episode-30-todos-todas-todes-addendum/.

Gong, Y. (2016). Online discourse of masculinities in transnational football fandom: Chinese Arsenal fans’ talk around ‘gaofushuai’ and ‘diaosi.’ Discourse & Society, 27(1), 20–37. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26376413

Higa, J., & Dunham, M. (n.d.). Can linguistic innovations bridge the gender divide?: Inclusive language in contemporary Spanish social media. UVM ScholarWorks. Retrieved October 28, 2022, from https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/src/2019/program/153/

Tavits, M. & Pérez, E. O. (2019). Language influences mass opinion toward gender and LGBT equality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(34): 16781-16786. Salinas, C. (2020). The complexity of the “X” in latinx: How latinx/A/O students relate to, identify with, and understand the term latinx. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 19 (2),

149–168. From https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2017.1390464

Lankes, A. (2022, July 20). In Argentina, one of the world’s first bans on gender-neutral language. The New York Times. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/world/americas/argentina-gender-neutral-spanish.html

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Sylvia Hopkins

Content/Trigger Warning: This article discusses sexual assault

Social commentary has become much more common and impactful to everyday people and their lives. In current times, social commentary is mostly used in social justice spaces with the intent of raising awareness, educating people, or calling out people and institutions for problematic behavior. In the past, only academics and media broadcasters were able to social commentate on a large scale. Traditionally, social commentary was largely limited to class-privileged and college-educated people who were overwhelmingly white and male. The rise of the internet and social media has allowed people who would not have previously had the resources to share their ideas to now be able to broadcast their ideas to thousands, if not millions of people. Because of this new-found accessibility, there has been a huge increase in marginalized people creating and engaging in social commentary. The recent increases in accessibility are not only good for diversity, but also for subverting gender norms.

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Introduction and Background

According to common gender norms, girls and women are expected to soften their language and avoid being direct, and to not employ harsh rhetoric. In contrast, boys and men are allowed and expected to not not soften their language, to be direct, and use harsh rhetoric. But these trends are not being seen in social commentary; female social commentators are routinely using harsh rhetoric and being direct with their wordage and their messaging, all while male social commentators are doing the opposite, they are regularly using soft and indirect rhetoric.

Social commentary is not something that has drawn the attention of many researchers, and the works that exist on it primarily deal with the potential political consequences and mass spread of misinformation. Gender and linguistics in social commentary spaces has not been properly researched, this project aims to fill in some of the gaps and provide understanding by analyzing videos from social commentators.

Methods

The design of this project was to transcribe four total YouTube videos from different social commentators, two female and two male, about the same topic and cross-analyze them. The common topic for this project was a sexual assault scene Bridgerton, a show that recently came out on Netflix, it was chosen because it was recent and stirred lots of pushback, criticism, and commentary. The sexual assault scene details Daphne sexually assaulting her husband, Simon, in an attempt to become pregnant. This scene was considered disturbing by a mass audience and all social commentators in this sample also found it disturbing. Cross analysis was based on the use of cursing, euphemisms, and dysphemisms.

The three linguistic features that were analyzed in this project are word choice (curse words), as well as euphemisms and dysphemisms. The use of curse words is relevant because cursing is considered in most spaces and contexts to be socially unpleasant and harsh. Cursing is something that men are not regularly punished for or discouraged from doing, while women are often told that cursing is not “lady-like”. Aditi Sharma explores the gendered double standards for cursing in her article Why Do Women Have Such Limited Swear Words To Ab(Use)? Euphemisms and dysphemisms are relevant because when someone uses an euphemism, they are trying to be less harsh and soften their words, while with dysphemisms, they are trying to make their words harsher for rhetorical effect.

Results

Transcriptions 1 and 2 both came from male commentators, Luke Alexander and Jack Edwards. Neither of them used cursing or dysphemisms, and one of them (Luke Alexander) used an euphemism. Neither of them used the word “rape”, Luke Alexander instead spelled out “R-A-P-E” to avoid saying “rape” or “sexual assault”. In contrast, neither of the female commentators used euphemisms and both of them used the word “rape” directly instead of using a euphemism or spelling it out like Alexander.

Transcriptions 3 and 4 came from female commentators, Nicole a.k.a. “A Seventeenth Grade Nothing” and Ashley Arden. As stated before they did not use euphemisms and both referred to sexual assault directly by saying “rape”. Nicole is the only commentator in this sample that curses. Ashley Arden’s states that this scene is “ugliest scene I’ve ever watched in a teen show”. Both Nicole’s and Ashley Arden’s commentaries are blunt and direct, neither of them use any linguistic feature to soften their tone, wordage, or message. This is the opposite for Luke Alexander and Jack Edwards, neither of them use the word “rape” and neither of them use dysphemisms.

Discussion

Each of the commentators are norm-breakers. Luke Alexander, Nicole, and Jack Edwards in relation to cursing. Nicole for her cursing, Alexander and Edwards for their complete lack of cursing. In Example 3, Nicole curses, this makes her a norm-breaker because it is considered socially unacceptable in many contexts for women to curse. Contrasting Nicole, neither of the male commentators use cursing, which makes them also norm-breakers in most non-formal settings, it is considered appropriate, and often expected for men to curse. Luke Alexander, Nicole, and Ashley Arden are norm-breakers with respect to euphemisms.  Luke Alexander uses a euphemism when he refers to semen as “children juice” and spelling out rape instead of saying it directly. This goes against gendered norms because men are expected to use direct language when communicating, therefore to not use euphemisms. Neither Nicole nor Ashley Arden use euphemisms, which makes them both norm-breakers for not using euphemisms to soften their language, which is something women are expected to do. When women use direct language they can be labeled as “aggressive” or “masculine”.

Conclusion

The purpose of this research was to see if social commentary has created a space for people to subvert gendered linguistic norms and if so, what does it mean for society as a whole. The answer put simply is yes, people of different genders are shown to subvert gender norms, this was shown through looking at the use of cursing, euphemisms, and dysphemisms. This has significant meaning for society, because while gender norms, not just ones dealing with language, are being moved away from, they are still very present and often harm people.

The internet made the ability to social commentate so much more accessible than it had ever been, and this accessibility gave diversity, it gave voices that were not being listened to a way to be heard on a mass scale. Accessibility also gave women and men the ability to communicate to mass audiences in ways that violate gender norms, which is not only significant for the commentators themselves, but also the people that watch them. When people see people that mirror their identities subverting gender norms it gives a sort of permission to the viewer to do the same. This subversion of gender norms can allow people to express themselves more authentically without being punished or ridiculed. While having gender norms is not inherently evil, they are largely oppressive and tie into larger patterns of violence. When people violate gender norms, they can be subject to violence; there are countless examples of this, some of which are women being killed for being rude to men, men who engage in femininity are often the victims of hate-crimes, women being murdered in honor killings, and many more. Subverting gender norms with linguistics is subverting gender norms as a whole, and doing so makes society freer and safer.

References

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