LINGUIST List 15.2409

Sun Aug 29 2004

Qs: Research survey: Gendered Writing Styles

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  1. Victoria Varga, Research into gendered writing styles

Message 1: Research into gendered writing styles

 Date: 29 Aug 2004 09:20:29 -0600
From: Victoria Varga <vixgeeksanon.ca>
Subject: Research into gendered writing styles

Hello,

I'm an undergraduate student at the University of Alberta (in Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada) and I received a research award for this summer. As a
part of my research, I need people to fill out an online survey I
created.

I am researching the subject of language in gender, particularily
whether or not there are gendered writing styles. I have written a
computer program in Perl which labels a text as being either male or
female in style based upon the number of gendered markers found in the
text. The algorithm is based upon the definitions of Robin Lakoff and
Dale Spender, among others, of what a feminine language style is. I will
compare the results of this program with the results generated by my
online survey.

If you are interested in helping me collect data, you can find my survey
at this address:
http://vix.geeksanon.ca/survey/

It takes about 10-20 minutes to complete. Please do not use the forward,
back, or reload buttons while taking the survey.

Thank you very much,
Vicky Varga
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