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.

This text contains 22 essays, any number of which would be relevant to our class.  For my purposes, Chapter 19 on "Charting the Codes of Cyberspace: the Rhetoric of Electronic Mail" by Judith Yaross Lee  is important because it seeks to codify email as a hybrid of oral speech and traditional writing. Philip Thompsen continues to discuss online communication strategies in Chapter 20: "What's Fueling the Flames in Cyberspace: A Social Influence Model".  Thompsen attempts to redefine flaming on the internet and propose a social-influence model which incorporates the flaming behavior and the negotiation of what that behavior means to the community. While he does not address gender per se, he does seek to define flaming behavior and explain its consequences to group members over long term online experience.