Gender on the screen: a public view of private writing

Abstract

This paper examines the public and private nature of personal weblogs written by British and Spanish teenagers. In particular, it reports on the first stage of a long-term research project about the effects of the anti-sexist language policies and the process of feminisation of the language in the media. Given that the linguistic expression of online female gender identity includes a wide range of variables, I shall concentrate on a selection of pragmatic meanings of informative and directive utterances in British and Spanish female teenagers’ narrations of their love-life. In doing so, I shall highlight the fight between the persistence
of traditional patriarchal feminine behaviours and the growing appearance of culturallybased androgynous behaviour patterns in both British and Spanish societies.