two requests for research pointers

[Victoria L. Bergvall]

I just saw Larry Horn's query on computer-mediated communication (CMC) and
sex differences, and Susan Herring's reply (she has provided an excellent
bib and paper there, so do check them out). Thanks Susan--your work comes
just as I was doing a web search for the same material. You've been a
pioneer for all of us in this field. Thanks for your great work!

Also,the latest volume of Berkeley Women and Language Conference Papers
(just out) (http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/BWLG/Conf98.html), has two
interesting papers on gender and CMC by James Waldinger and Ben Smith.

However, I'd like to inject a plea, again, not to immediately cast the
question as one of "sex *differences*" (repeating Janet Bing's and my plea
in our chapter in *Rethinking language and gender research* (Bergvall,
Bing, & Freed, eds, Longman 1996). I realize that society often casts
"women" and "men" into seemingly dichotomous and opposed groups, but real
people--and real language--is often much more complicated, and needs to be
treated as such (as Susan and others, in fact, acknowledge).

I will be presenting a paper (The continuum of gender construction in
on-line discourse) at the coming IGALA conference, which shows that gender
behavior in discourse forms a continuum on-line as it does off-line, and
that starting with assumptions about "female" and "male" speech forms can
cast the whole debate as dichotomous to begin with, and thus, perhaps
overlook the critical overlaps.

I agree, strongly, that the nature of social construction of gender in
discourse on-line often exaggerates gender differences into virtual
burlesques of off-line gendered discourse patterns. But there are still
critical overlaps both on- and off-line; data in my IGALA paper will
illustrate that where the orientation of the talk is not to SOCIAL issues,
but more to TASK issues, gender is much less salient and virtually
invisible, and thus, gender "differences" are less obvious than the
similarities and continuities. That paper is still very much in process,
but I will be happy to share it and discuss it when it gets done.

It is all a complex issue that demands more attention. So, my best wishes
to your students!

Vicky










>Hi.  For two of the students in my Language, Sex & Gender class I was
>wondering if any listees could point me to relevant recent research.
>
>(1)  One is planning to do a paper on sex differences related to the form
>and content of contributions to internet newsgroups, chat groups, lists,
>etc.  I've included the paper by Susan Herring et al. (Herring, Johnson &
>DiBenedetto, "Participation in electronic discourse in a 'feminist' field"
>) reprinted in the Coates Language and Gender reader in my course packet,
>but I don't know what's been done on this topic in the last several years.
>
>(2)  Another student is interested in exploring language and gender issues
>in the context of children's books.  She's thinking of a doing a
>quantitative study and would like to know of any earlier work in this
>(rather broadly defined) domain.
>
>Thanks much for any suggestions you can provide.
>
>larry horn


___________________________________________________________________
Victoria L. Bergvall             Associate Professor of Linguistics
Director of Graduate Programs in Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Department of Humanities          Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive       Houghton      Michigan 49931-1295     USA
vbergval at mtu.edu       Phone: (906)487-3248      Fax: (906)487-3559
___________________________________________________________________