Gendered typography: Abbreviation and insertion in Italian iTV SMS

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Published: Oct 26, 2018
Keywords:
gender, computer-mediated communication, Italian, SMS, sociolinguistics

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Susan C. Herring
Asta Zelenkauskaite

Abstract

Unlike traditional genres of writing, interactive text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) exhibits considerable typographic variability. This study analyzes gender variation in abbreviations and insertions in mobile phone text messages (SMS) posted to a public Italian interactive television (iTV) program. All broadcast SMS were collected for a period of two days from the web archive for the iTV program, for a corpus of roughly 1,500 SMS, and the frequency and distribution of abbreviations and insertions, as well as overall message lengths, were analyzed according to sender gender. The results reveal that females posted more and longer SMS and used more non-standard forms, contrary to previous gender-related findings in the sociolinguistics and CMC literatures. Differences are also found in the types of abbreviation and insertion that females and males preferred. An explanation for these findings is proposed in terms of the local and contextual norms of an implicit iTV SMS dating market.

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Article Details

Issue
Vol. 8 No. 3 (2008): Gender in Language: Classic Questions, New Contexts
Section
Articles

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