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Constructions of and negotiations on interaction norms and gender on electronic discussion lists in Norway - Janne Bromseth

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In this article, Bromseth discusses his research into 2 Norwegian email lists: Radical Forum (a socialist/Marxist forum) and The Doctor's List (a forum for general practitioners) in which the membership was divided approximately 85% men and 15% women. While the political group tended towards confrontational discussion and raw polemic, the medical forum was characterized by face-saving strategies and an emphasis on "brotherhood". Bromseth argues that the latter behavior should not be seen as "feminization" of male speech, but rather as an example of positive and definitively male social practices in modern (2001) Norway. To him, gender is constantly being constructed in relation to other social phenomena and contexts must always be examined independently to show such construction without stereotyping behavior. This argument runs in counter to the generally accepted thoughts towards men's speech and should definitely be considered as a reminder to readers to not make generalized assumptions based upon previous theories, but instead, to take into account mitigating cultural and social factors when analyzing any speech community.

Gender and politeness / Sara Mills.

In Gender and Politeness, Mills provides a new perspective on common assumptions of women's and men's speech with regard to etiquette and politeness. In her introduction, she positions herself in the "third wave" of sociolinguists interested in women's speech - who are critical of the "second wave" of linguists such as Deborah Tannen, Dale Spender, and Robin Lakoff (cited elsewhere in my bibliography) for asserting the existance of "women's speech". Mills prefers to discuss language in terms of "communities of practice" where people are drawn together to perform a common task. She uses models developed by Judith Butler, Alice Freed, Bonnie McElhinny and others which position that gender is an act which can take place in contexts which are also considered gendered, such that she can attempt to describe gender at a discourse level instead of just at an utterance level or individual level. As such, she can argue that men and women can alter their levels of politeness based upon interactional context with other speakers instead of following set gendered linguistic patterns. While none of her research involves online or internet communication, I find her analysis to be an excellent counterpoint to the other linguists I have cited because of her challenge to previous assumptions.

Language and woman's place / Robin Lakoff.

Robin Lakoff is one of the so-called "first generation" of linguists to look at women's speech as being quantitatively different from men's speech, and also one of the first generation of feminists to look towards linguistics as a scientific study to which to prove inherent sexism in language. Although this text is dated (1975), it does serve as a key cited secondary reference for many of the articles published recently about gender and discourse. Even other linguists who go on to refute Lakoff's dichotomies continue to cite her work regularly. For my purposes, I may choose to quote from part 2 of her book "Why Women are Ladies" which deals with forms of politeness and how women specifically express politeness in speech, topics which I feel are still relevant today on the internet.