Washington (IANS): Eligible women were found to be more expressive than men in texting messages, thanks to technology.
Indiana University (IU) researchers found that when men and women exchange text message 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 interactive channel Allmusic, it is the women who push their messages closest to the character-count limit, who use more abbreviations and insertions.
“The messages are very flirtatious and have nothing to do with the television show,” said Herring, a professor at the IU School of Library and Information Science.
“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 recognised socio-linguistic gender patterns,”
“Women have historically used standard language when they are social aspirers, or want to be perceived as above their station,” Herring said. “Men talk more; women are more polite.”