Nice to Tweet you

In this modern age of technological wizardry it seems as if we spend half our lives in the virtual world of social media. With the possibilities seemingly endless and millions of people just a click away it is no wonder that social networking is at the forefront of this technological revolution. Perhaps the most powerful player in this new and evolving industry is Twitter. With some 645 million registered users and a whopping 500 million tweets sent everyday it is no wonder that Twitter is taking control of social media. With so many 'tweeters' sharing thoughts, experiences and ideas every second it is undoubtedly a spectacular opportunity to take a closer look at the difference in language use between its users, more specifically between its male and female users. Is there really a difference in the way the genders use language on twitter?

Firstly let's take a look at differences in male and female language use, a subject on which much has been written and explored. Though arguably out of date and somewhat inaccurate Robin Lakoff's studies into female language provide some interesting observations that can still be seen today. Such an example would be her proposal that women tend to use more intensifiers as well as having a special lexicon with more words for certain things than men for example a man may say "It's good to see you" whereas according to Lakoff a woman would say "It really is so lovely to see you" evidently showing some difference in language use of males and females.

Further investigation into the differences of language use have also been done by Deborah Tannen who summarised six main contrasts between how males and females use language, the most relevant to tweets being 'Information vs Feelings'. According to Tannen males are likely to use language to convey useful information whereas females will use language to express feelings. This may be able to be seen in tweets as men will tweet about information such as "Just been for a run" whereas women will tweet their emotions and feelings. So that's the effect that gender appears to have on language but how has the internet affected language use?

Although the internet is relatively new it has already developed its own lexis and language style. Acronyms such as 'LOL' and 'YOLO' are now frequent in all different forms of language. Even Twitter has developed its own language. This is mainly because of its renowned 140 character limit which has led to ellipsis and abbreviations becoming regularly used weapons in the battle to remain below that vital limit. David Crystal even goes as far as saying "the 140-character limit of Twitter is changing our ways of thinking."

With both gender and the internet having such drastic effects on the language we use it's no wonder that tweets on Twitter are barely recognisable from what has been familiar as recently as in the last decade. Who knows what the future holds.

By Jamie Barber