Gender Similarities And Differences Based On Amrican A-list Teenager Blogging

This study tends to make an investigation of American teenage bloggers'communicative behaviors from the perspective of sociolinguistics. Through a systematic analysis of American A-list teenager blogs, the author tends to examine the gender distinctions disclosed in the CMC community. Such distinctions will be studied through the following variables: personal information disclosure, topic choice, emoticon manifestation, aggressive, active and resolute language use versus optimistic, cooperative and accommodating language use.The methodology this research embraces is content analysis, and the research objects are collected with the assistance blog content categorization software: Blogsearchengine. Subsequently, DICTION software, a text analysis program developed by Dr. R. P. Hart, is employed to convert the written text into quantifying and comparable data. Through the SPSS analysis of the collected data, this research demonstrates that similarities and differences coexist in American male and female A-list youth blogs. Specifically, there are more similarities than differences in the aspects of personal information disclosure, topic choice and emoticon manifestation, whereas from the perspective of blog language use, prominent gender differences can be obviously observed. Through the research results the author finds that American teenagers treat blogs as an extension of the real world, and the gender distinctions existed in the real world do replicate to some extent in this virtual community.Based on the research result, the author makes a further inquisition of the possible factors leading to such gender differences. Through reading and analyzing a large amount of domestic and foreign relative literatures, the author finds that inherent biological differences combined with sociocultual influences together contribute to the distinctions of American teenagers'communicative behaviors in the blog community.Research towards gender distinctions of American teenagers from the perspective of blogs is believed to be of great significance as it can not only enrich the existing sociolinguistic theories concerning gender studies and language use, it is also instructive to online activities such as online communication and distance learning, which is becoming increasingly significant in this contemporary society.