The Influence of Gender Difference on Polite Language in Computer-mediated Communication
Abstract
With rapid development of internet, more and more people use it in recent years. It plays an important role in our life. There is no doubt that we are all living in an internet world, the environment of the Internet is very complex. And, it is very obvious that online chatting has become an inseparable part of our life. What’s more? Cross-gender communication is quite important in daily life conversations. And it is also the main component of network communication. Nowadays, the studies of gender and language are the most important part in the world, and gender differences in communication have attracted more and more attentions.
Moreover, politeness plays an important role in communication. Using polite language is a kind of common social phenomenon; it not only exists in various languages, but also can be different from one culture to another. Men and women, due to the gender differences, will have different politeness strategies and expression in the conversation. Today, social and network interpersonal communication is frequent, polite language has provided the safeguard for people to establish harmonious relations. So, to understand the influence of gender differences on polite language in Computer-mediate communication is particularly important.
This thesis will study the influence of gender difference on polite language in computer-mediated communication, it divides into five chapters. The first chapter will talk about the background and situation of the present study, and its methodology and data. The second chapter will show the literature review of the theory. Next chapter will give a brief introduction about the talks about the embodiment of the polite language in gender differences in computer-mediated communication. The fourth chapter is to analyze the reasons that cause the difference from different perspectives, especially from the cultural and social perspectives. And, the last chapter is the conclusion of the thesis. Finally, it presents the limitation of the present research.
Key words: computer-mediated communication, gender difference, polite language, reasons