Gender and word elongation in Facebook-mediated communication in Palestinian Arabic

ABSTRACT

This article examines the social and linguistic functions of word elongation in Palestinian Facebook-mediated communication. Drawing on Ochs’ social constructivism and Parrott’s classification of emotions, we analyse a 65-discourse corpus of personal interviews using a mixed methods approach. It finds, while there are many similarities in the conventions related to word elongation between male sand females, 75% of the female sample use this practice while 45% of the males said they hardly used it. Word elongation is clearly a feature that characterises female language although its use is not restricted to females. Forty percent of males would use it to indicate that they are angry whereas 45% of females would use abbreviations instead. While 60% of females use word elongation to express positive feelings, 40% of males would use it to communicate positive emotions. The researchers conclude that elongated words reflect a social change in Palestinian society with respect to gender and language.

KEYWORDS:

• Facebook-meditated communication
• word elongation
• context
• social identity
• emotions
• social resistance
• emphasis
• gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹Arabic is written in the reverse direction to English (i.e., form right to left).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tharwat Arafat

Tharwat Arafat, MA in Applied Linguistics and Translation, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine, Email: [email protected].

Bilal Hamamra

Bilal Hamamra has a PhD in Early Modern Drama from the University of Lancaster, UK and works currently as an associate professor of English Literature at the Department of English Language and Literature, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine. His research interests are in Early Modern Drama, Shakespeare, Women’s Writings and Gender Studies. His articles on language, gender and sexual politics, martyrdom and terrorism and diaspora have appeared inEarly Modern Literary Studies, Critical Survey, Interventions, ANQ, The Explicator, Journal for Cultural Research, Psychodynamic Practice, Journal of Gender Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Anglia, Middle East Critique, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Arab Studies Quarterly and Changing English, among others. Email: [email protected].