Women more expressive through technology: Study

A study has suggested that females are far more expressive when they talk through technology.

Even as gender stereotypes on how men and women communicate remains fodder for debate,a study has suggested that females are far more expressive when they talk through technology.

Two Indiana University researchers in the United States found that when men and women text message to each other in a public,interactive dating market,it is the women who use more non-standard,expressive language techniques.

Susan Herring and Asta Zelenkauskaite show that while men historically talk more in public settings,when the exchanges occur via text messaging in a public venue — in this case,Italy’s real-time interactive music television channel Allmusic — it is the women who push their messages closest to the character-count limit,who use more abbreviations and insertions,and who implement more emoticons (like smiling and frowning faces).

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The messages are very flirtatious and have nothing to do with the television show, Herring,a professor in the IU School of Library and Information Science,was quoted as saying by the Science Daily online today.

In the linguistic marketplace there have always been different values associated with standard and non-standard language,and here we have found results that are paradoxical,that are the opposite of the recognized socio-linguistic gender patterns, wrote Herring in the latest edition of the quarterly journal Written Communication.

According to the study,women used more non-standard language such as abbreviations or expressive insertions that represented characteristics including enthusiasm,sadness,emphasis and individuality.