nvestigating Gender and Linguistic Convergence: A Conversational analysis of Mixed- Gender Online Chats

Abstract

The dissertation at hand aims at investigating and analyzing the phenomenon of linguistic convergence in mixed-gender online-chat. This study opts for mixed method that combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches using a structured questionnaire and a conversational analysis. The questionnaire is administered to seventy-four LMD students at Ibn Khaldoun University of Tiaret (Algeria), while five online conversations are chosen to be analysed using a conversational analysis method. The findings of this research reveal that men and women do communicate differently using both written and spoken form, but for some reasons the context of the communication do control them at the lexical level which create and open the door for language adaptation and convergence.