A Tentative Study On Gender Differences In Computer-mediated Communication

This dissertation focuses on gender-linked differences in Computer-mediatedCommunication. Former researches on gender issues are mainly concerned with thecommunicative styles adopted by men and women in Face-to-Face communication.There are not many researches conducted in this field in the computerizedenvironment. On one hand, it is because Internet language is a relatively new topic inlinguistic field. On the other hand, the anonymous phenomenon brings obstacles forthe gender study in cyberspace. Under the theoretical framework of ConversationalAnalysis and Politeness Principle, the present dissertation endeavors to expand theprevious gender-linked linguistic study to the new communicative channel. Throughexamining corpora getting from synchronous and asynchronous communication aswell as analyzing the questionnaire statistics, the present study aims at leading to therecognition of a gendered computerized environment and indicating thatgender-linked linguistic differences will not disappear even the communicativemedium is new and virtual.The present study starts from a general understanding of computer-mediatedcommunication which differentiates from any traditional means of communicationthat human beings have previously known and which stands out well with its specificfeatures and capabilities. A brief understanding of its specific modes, characteristicsand process of development are put forward in chapter one in order to pave the pathfor later sections of the dissertation.Mainstreams of CMC research and established theories on language and genderare reviewed in chapter two. The previous gender-linked linguistic studies in CMC aremainly represented by two opinions: one is that CMC is gender neutral and the otheris that gender-linked linguistic differences follow men and women into onlinecommunication. Meanwhile, theories on language and gender mainly focus on thedeficit theory, dominance theory, difference theory, ethnolinguistic identity theory andpoliteness theory.Chapter three provides the theoretical framework to the present study. Thedissertation adopted Conversational Analysis and Politeness Principle as thetheoretical framework to approach the possible gender-linked differences in CMC.The purpose of employing CA approach is to find out what kind of conversationalstyles male and female incline to choose in online communication. The PolitenessPrinciple, on one hand, provides the theoretical foundation for discovering male andfemale who are prone to observe or violate such principle in cyberspace;on the otherhand, it functions as a guidance to people's online communication, as netiquette hasbeen becoming a necessary requirement for netizens.In chapter four, the combination of corpus analysis and a questionnaire surveyare applied in order to explore gender differences in cross-gender conversations withrespect to synchronous communication and asynchronous communication incomputerized context.Chapter five advances to analyze the causes of the gender-linked linguisticdifferentiation in cyberspace based on the Dominance Approach, SubcultureApproach and Psychological Approach. Meanwhile, the importance and necessity ofNetiquette is proposed in order to deal with the problems of miscommunicationbetween male and female's online communication.The aim of the dissertation is to guide people's online communication, to reducemiscommunication and to stress the importance of netiquette. Nowadays, as Internethas become an inseparable part of people's daily life, to stress netiquette and theapplication of politeness rules turns out to be extremely meaningful for CMC, as thecharacteristics of CMC entails greater chance for impoliteness to occur in onlineexchanges than in any other means of exchange.Due to the unreality and creativity of cyberspace, and due to the limitation ofreferences and research competence, this dissertation still has many inaccuracies anddefects, but further researches are worthy of being done in this new and challengingfield.