The rhetoric of online support groups
A sociopragmatic analysis English-Spanish
The study draws on a diverse sample of adult users of online support groups to investigate how men and women engage in written conversations, and how these interactions are carried out in English and in Spanish contrastively. We will see to what extent female and male communicators in online support groups display similar power behaviours since some authors believe that these fora seem to provide a context where factors such as power and status are neutralised. In general, the detailed quantitative analysis suggests that women use powerless markers far more frequently than men. Therefore the findings support the contention that gender-based differences persist on the Internet, an arena which was initially believed to be free of built-in bias. On the other hand, the inter- and cross-cultural comparison indicates that the discourse practices in English include more powerless markers than those in Spanish. Interestingly, the abundant use of occurrences of formal addresses and polite forms displayed by men in Spanish may suggest that, in online support groups, men may be adopting communicative strategies traditionally associated with women’s discourse.
References (45)
Albelda, M. (2004). Cortesía en diferentes situaciones comunicativas, la conversación coloquial y la entrevista sociológica semiformal. In D. Bravo & A. Briz (Eds.), Pragmática sociocultural: Análisis del discurso de cortesía en español (pp. 109–134). Barcelona: Ariel.
Albelda, M., & Cestero, A.M. (2011). De nuevo, sobre los procedimientos de atenuación lingüística. Español Actual, 961, 9–40.
Arguello, J., Butler, B.S., Joyce, E., Kraut, R., Ling, K.S., Rosé, C., & Wang, X. (2006). Talk to me: Foundations for successful individual-group interactions in online communities. In
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
(pp. 959–968). ACM.
Barak, A., Boniel-Nissim, M., & Suler, J. (2008). Fostering empowerment in online support groups. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5), 1867–1883.
Blum-Kulka, S. (1997). Discourse pragmatics. In T.A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse and social interaction (pp. 38–63). Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage.
Bou-Franch, P. (2013). Domestic violence and public participation in the media: The case of citizen journalism. Gender and Language, 7(3), 275–302.
Briz, A. (2012). La (no) atenuación y la (des) cortesía, lo lingüístico y lo social: ¿Son pareja? In J. Escamilla Morales & G. Henry Vega (Eds.), Miradas multidisciplinares a los fenómenos de cortesía y descortesía en el mundo hispánico (pp. 33–75). Barranquilla/Estocolmo: Universidad del Atlántico/Universidad de Estocolmo: Cadis, Programa Edice.
Briz, A., & Albelda, M. (2013). Una propuesta teórica y metodológica para el análisis de la atenuación lingüística en español y portugués: La base de un proyecto en común (ES.POR.ATENUACIÓN). Onomazéin, 281, 288–319.
Bucholtz, M. (Ed.). (2004). Language and woman’s place: Text and commentaries. New York: Oxford University Press.
Carstarphen, M.G., & Lambiase, J.J. (1998). Domination and democracy in cyberspace: Reports from the majority media and ethnic/gender margins. In B.L. Ebo (Ed.), Cyberghetto or cybertopia: Race, class, and gender on the Internet (pp. 121–135). Westport: Praeger.
Chafe, W. (1982). Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature. Spoken and written language. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Exploring orality and literacy (pp. 35–53). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Coates, J. (1989). Gossip revisited: Language in all-female groups. In J. Coates & D. Cameron (Eds.), Women in their speech communities (pp. 94–122). London: Longman.
Davison, K.P., Pennebaker, J.W., & Dickerson, S.S. (2000). Who talks?: The social psychology of illness support groups. American Psychologist, 55(2), 205.
Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (2013). Language and gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fox, A.B., Bukatko, D., Hallahan, M., & Crawford, M. (2007). The medium makes a difference: Gender similarities and differences in instant messaging. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26(4), 389–397.
Fragale, A.R. (2006). The power of powerless speech: The effects of speech style and task interdependence on status conferral. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1011, 243–261.
Fraser, B. (1980). Conversational mitigation. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 341–350.
Fraser, B. (2010). Pragmatic competence: The case of hedging. In G. Kaltenbock, W. Mihatsch, & S. Schneider (Eds.), New approaches to hedging (pp. 15–35). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group.
García Vizcaíno, M.J. (1988). Estrategias de cortesía verbal en inglés y en español. Tesis doctoral. Universidad de Granada (Spain).
Grabe, W., & Kaplan, R.B. (1996). Theory and practice of writing. London: Longman.
Guiller, J., & Durndell, A. (2006). ‘I totally agree with you’: Gender interactions in educational online discussion groups. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 22(5), 368–381.
Hasselgreen, A. (2004). Testing the spoken English of young Norwegians: A study of test validity and the role of “smallwords” in contributing to pupils’ fluency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haverkate, H. (2004). El análisis de la cortesía comunicativa, categorización pragmalingüística de la cultura española. In D. Bravo & A. Briz (Eds.), Pragmática sociocultural: Análisis del discurso de cortesía en español (pp. 55–65). Barcelona: Ariel.
Herring, S.C. (2004). Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online communities. In S.A. Barab, R. Kling, & J.H. Gray (Eds.), Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning (pp. 338–376). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York.
Herring, S.C., & Stoerger, S. (2014). Gender and (a)nonymity in computer-mediated communication. In S. Ehrlich, M. Meyerhoff, & J. Holmes (Eds.), The handbook of language, gender, and sexuality (pp. 567–586). London: John Wihley & Sons.
Hobsbawn, E. (1994). Ages of extremes: The short twentieth century 1914-1991. St Ives: Abacus.
Lakoff, G. (1972). Hedges: A study of meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts. In P. Peranteau, J. Levi, & G. Phares (Eds.), Papers from the Eight Regional Meeting of Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 183–228). Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and woman’s place. New York: Harper & Row.
Lakoff, R. (2004). Language and woman’s place with annotations by the author. In M. Bucholtz (Ed.), Language and woman’s place: Text and commentaries (pp. 16–120). New York: Oxford University Press.
Markkanen, R., & Schröder, H. (1997). Hedging: A challenge for pragmatics and discourse analysis. In R. Markkanen & H. Schröder (Eds.), Hedging and discourse: Approaches to the analysis of a pragmatic phenomenon in academic texts (pp. 3–18). Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Mendiluce Cabrera, G.M., & Hernández Bartolomé, A.I. (2005). La matización asertiva en el artículo biomédico: una propuesta de clasificación para los estudios contrastivos inglés-español. Ibérica, 101, 63–90.
Mo, P.K., Malik, S.H., & Coulson, N.S. (2009). Gender differences in computer-mediated communication: A systematic literature review of online health-related support groups. Patient education and counseling, 75(1), 16–24. Available at: [URL]
Ng, S.H., & Bradac, J.J. (1993). Power in language: Verbal communication and social influence. Newbury Park: Sage.
O’Barr, W.M. (1982). Linguistic evidence: Language, power, and strategy in the courtroom. New York: Academic Press.
O’Barr, W.M., & Atkins, B.K. (1980). Women’s language “or” powerless language. In S. McConnell-Ginet (Ed.), Women and language in literature and society (pp. 93–110). New York: Praeger.
Parton, S.R., Siltanen, S.A., Hosman, L.A., & Langenderfer, J. (2002). Employment interview outcomes and speech style effects. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 21(2), 144–161.
Pérez-Sabater, C. (2011). Cartas por Internet: Las implicaciones lingüísticas y estilísticas de los mensajes de correo electrónico y los comentarios del sitio de redes sociales FACEBOOK. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 241, 111–130.
Pérez-Sabater, C., & Montero-Fleta, B. (2014). Pragmatic competence and social power awareness: The case of written and spoken discourse in non-native English environments. International Journal of English Studies, 14(2), 21–38.
Poveda Cabanes, P. (2007). A contrastive analysis of hedging in English and Spanish architecture project descriptions. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 201, 139–158.
Seale, C., Ziebland, S., & Charteris-Black, J. (2006). Gender, cancer experience and internet use: A comparative keyword analysis of interviews and online cancer support groups. Social Science & Medicine, 62(10), 2577–2590.
Sussman, N.M., & Tyson, D.H. (2000). Sex and power: Gender differences in computer-mediated interactions. Computers in Human Behavior, 16(4), 381–394.
Urmson, J.O. (1952). IV.—Parenthetical verbs. Mind, 61(244), 480–496.
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.