Gender Differences in Emotional Content of EFL Written Narratives

Abstract

Abstract-Gender's trace in the use of language, although not evidently, is commonly present in all classroom situations. It is commonly believed that women are expressive and emotional, while men are self-asserting and power-oriented in the use of language. The present study, in adopting an empirically-supported approach to the negative and positive emotional content of the narrative autobiographical reports, concentrated on 103 female and 82 male graduate EFL students' writing. The collected written data were then analyzed by on-line language processing programs for emotional linguistic content. Although statistical analysis did not offer significant differences across genders, the data do show a slight tendency on the females' part to use a higher rate of emotional words. The results, while not very revealing in statistical terms, can point to a growing trend of equality, especially among the academically educated population in contexts like Iran as a Middle Eastern country. Implications of the study are discussed in the light of the literature, and theoretical background.

A Review Study About Gender Differences in Expressive Language: Spoken And Written Language Differences

“…One exception to that conclusion and a notable gender difference may be concerning emotional expressiveness; females were found to be more expressive in instant messaging in terms of emphasis, laughing, emoticons, adjectives, and topics (Fox et al, 2007). Similar results were evident in other studies indicating higher emotional expressiveness among females as compared to males in written language (Ahmadi-Azad, 2015;Brebner, 2003;Polce-Lynch et al, 1998).…”

Gender and emotional intelligence as predictors of career adaptability in the Department of Water and Sanitation in South Africa

“…The results also revealed a significant negative relationship between gender and the emotional intelligence sub-dimension of utilising emotions. The literature highlights the popular belief that men and woman interpret emotions in different ways with woman being more adept interpersonally than men whereas men are more optimistic and self-confident in terms of utilising their emotions (Ahmadi, 2015;Nikoopour & Esfandiari, 2017). Socialisation between men and women is different with personality characteristics explaining why woman are more empathetic and socially responsible in interpersonal relationships as compared with men.…”

“…Socialisation between men and women is different with personality characteristics explaining why woman are more empathetic and socially responsible in interpersonal relationships as compared with men. In relation to the utilisation of emotions, woman tend to be more expressive and assertive whereas men tend to control their feelings and, in most instances, they refrain from expressing their emotions (Ahmadi, 2015;Nikoopour & Esfandiari, 2017).…”

Análisis emocional del corpus COLUMNAS.HUMOR: un enfoque mixto

“…Con respecto a la expresión verbal de las emociones, son numerosos los estudios que indican que es posible obtener una gran cantidad de información de estas a través del recuento y la categorización de las palabras que utilizan en su comunicación (Ahmadi-Azad, 2015;Bamman et al, 2012;Goldshmidt y Weller, 2000, Vainik, 2006; entre otros). En español, el vocabulario de las emociones consiste en sustantivos abstractos que denotan conceptos ('miedo', 'felicidad'), en verbos ('disfrutar', 'calmar'), algunos adverbios ('maravillosamente'), adjetivos ('nauseabundo', 'ilustre'), interjecciones ('¡ay!…”