Enacting Gender Identity in Written Discourse

Abstract

This study investigated ways in which gender identity is enacted within written language. Participants first supplied a self-descriptive letter that might be filed with a dating service. Next, they responded to a fabricated personal ad posted by a potential dating partner. Contextual factors in this study were writing task (self-description or response to a personal ad) and the gender role “bid” (either instrumental or expressive) of the hypothetical personal ad writer. Individual difference variables were biological gender and measured gender role orientation. Texts were coded for frequency of seven gender-typed language features (e.g., hedges, first-person pronouns). Writers’ own gender role schemata affected their language use, as did their biological sex. Contextual factors were more potent than the writers’ gender in affecting these stylistic features. Overall, writers altered their styles to complement (rather than converge toward) the apparent gender role orientations of their interlocutors.