Written all over your blog: Gender and Writing

Baron, N. (2004) ‘See You Online: Gender Issues in College Student Use of Instant Messaging’, Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23(4): 397–423.


The field of sociolinguistics has a long history of researching and documenting gender differences in language usage and communication. Decades of research have unequivocally concluded that there are patterns of difference in female and male speech and communication styles. The linkages between gender, linguistics and writing are far less explored, with most studies examining historical documents and letters in an effort to identify gendered patterns in writing. The introduction of computer mediated communication and digital writing has added a new dimension to studies of language and gender, allowing researchers to review informal and spontaneous texts produced online to examine the role that gender may play in composition, linguistics and communication en masse.

In “See You Online,” Baron seeks create a linguistic profile of college students in the context of the online Instant Message (IM) and to identify linguistic differences patterned by gender on this medium. Focusing on lexical items, the study found that although there are commonalities between written and spoken language amongst both genders, women most often use more literary styles in their IM communications, relying on standard language conventions. Women less often use contractions, abbreviations and acronyms and men less often use emoticons in their instant messages.

I found this article useful for my study of linguistics and writing, not because it revealed any astounding conclusions about the role of gender in digital writing, but because it outlined what I feel is a solid methodology for examining text and identifying conversational and lexical patterns in written language. The research focused on conversational movements (how conversations are started, how they are ended, etc) and coded lexical items in the instant messages to weed out patterns of usage between the genders. The medium of the instant message, similar to Facebook, the medium of my intended research project, is beneficial to writing research as it places written language in an informal and spontaneous context most closely related to speech, allowing for researchers to examine the decisions writers subconsciously make without deliberation.

Despite the dated subject matter of the instant message, Baron’s study is significant in that it examines the linkages between language and gender and speech and writing and reiterates the popular language ideology that identity is a key factor in language production and demonstration. For those outside of the sociolinguistics field, this study is also significant in that it disputes the assertion that computer mediated communication removes all social aspects of identify from the user, creating a world where race and gender are erased.