Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MA
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
Committee Chair
Sergio Robles Puente
Committee Member
Jonah Katz
Committee Member
Manal Alnatour
Abstract
The study examines the types of speech acts of Facebook status updates that are posted by Jordanian and American youth. The participants were from Yarmouk University which is located in northern Jordan and from West Virginia University which is located in the US. The data was elicited from 50 American males, 50 American females, 50 Jordanian males, and 50 Jordanian females. Searle’s taxonomy was used to do the content analysis of the data. Searle’s taxonomy and additional speech acts were found: directive, expressive, assertive, God’s invocation, humor, and quotation. The findings of the study indicate that the religious and cultural background of the Jordanian students tremendously affects their linguistic choices when it comes to writing status updates on Facebook as opposed to the American students. The only similarity found in the results of the study was between American female students and Jordanian female students. Both female groups have the highest percentage of using expressive speech acts.
Recommended Citation
Al Sad, Ashraf Wenas, "Gendered use of language in Facebook status updates among Jordanian and American youths: A sociopragmatic study" (2021). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 8139.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/8139
Included in
Arabic Studies Commons, Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Other Linguistics Commons, Semantics and Pragmatics Commons