Gender-based Study of Stance Features in Blogs through Corpus Techniques

Study of Stance Features in Blogs through Corpus Techniques

Abstract

The current study explores the uses of stance features in blogs: Self mention, hedges,
boosters and attitude markers as used by Pakistani male and female bloggers. A
quantitative approach is used because of the descriptive nature of this study. The paper
aims at capturing the differences or similarities in using stance features by male and
female Pakistani bloggers. Hyland‘s (2005) interaction model is used to analyze the
corpus which was compiled specifically for this study. The corpus consists of 20 blogs,
10 each by male and female bloggers. The findings of the study indicate that the female
bloggers use a large number of first person pronouns than their male counterpart in their
blogs. The findings further reveal that the female bloggers use hedges more frequently as
compared to male bloggers. However, the boosters are more frequently used by male
bloggers. Finally, it is concluded that the female bloggers prefer to use stance features
which are related to uncertainty, whereas male bloggers use the features which are neutral
in their tone but assert their points of view.