ED7046: Language in Society Language, Gender and Communities of Practice Online: Is Language Becoming Gender Neutral?  Introduction: In this essay I propose to question and argue that our faith in previous gender dichotomies has been misplaced. I aim to explore how communities of practice provide an insight into neutralised, gender-fluid language. Previous research has focused heavily on the differences between male and female linguistic traits, leading many to believe that the biological binary between the two is the cause for different styles of language. In contrast to this, I will focus on the similarities between male and female discourse patterns by looking at Instagram posts from the fitness community of practice. The research question for this study is as follows: What does community of practices in a modern medium reveal about gender and language? From this, I hope to demonstrate that gender binaries in language use by males and females in a modern context is not as distinct and clear-cut as previously suggested. Literature Review: It has become a popularly accepted belief that men speak differently from women, and that it is all because of our biology. However, as Cameron (2008: 21) highlights, this is more a myth than a fact, and that modern research needs to focus on the ‘similarities’ as well as the ‘differences’ in how males and females talk. As she continues, ‘we are much less attentive to similarities between men and women’ (2008: 16), yet this only serves to construct and ‘reinforce the division in power in male and female relationships’ (Baxter, 2010: 18). Going back to the start of language and gender as a source of investigation, Lakoff (1975) hypothesised that women use language distinctively differently from men – a ‘Woman’s Language’- and that it represented their social marginalisation and weakness compared to men. This ‘dominance’ theory (Lakoff, 1975; Fishman 1978) brought this unequal division of power between male and female interactions to the forefront of linguistic attention. Lakoff’s seminal study described this ‘Woman’s Language’ as notable for its uncertainty and excessive politeness, and gave examples such as ‘empty adjectives’ like ‘lovely’, ‘charming’, and ‘divine’, as well as generally using words associated with an affective meaning (in contrast to the supposedly masculine referential meanings) (Talbot, 2010: 36). Clearly the initial wave of research into language and gender was solely focused on dividing men and women in the way they communicate. This is even more striking when considering Jespersen’s ‘deficit model’, which suggested that women instinctively ‘shrink away from coarseness and vulgarity’, in an attempt to maintain a pure language (Talbot, 2010: 35). Evidently previous research into language and gender was more influenced by biologically deterministic ideologies and separated male and female linguistic tendencies by sex, above any other factors. However, more recent research (Freed, 2014) has considered the roles of other factors in influencing why people speak the way they do. ‘There is no valid reason’, writes Alice Freed (2014: 628) for assuming ‘that the biological sex of individuals is naturally manifested as corresponding gendered behaviour’. She finds that research should not concern itself with assumptions about the identity of the people we study. However, Spender (1980) considers the English language to be literally man-made, and observes that when women speak they must do it in ‘a form acceptable to men’ (1985:84), or remain silent. The contrast between current research into gender and language and previous studies exacerbate the need for a more accommodating approach to how language, gender and identity are related. Critics such as Segal (1994: 29) have noted that time spent focusing on ‘men’s transhistorical and universal control over meanings’, would be better spent studying particular ‘groups of people’ who can control the ‘specific institutions which construct dominant frameworks of meaning’. Groups, like the ones Segal mentioned above, are commonly termed as a ‘community of practice’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991), as likeminded individuals come together and develop common knowledge and beliefs, ‘ways of relating to each other, [and] ways of talking’ (Eckert, 2013: 45). A distinction can be made here, which separates previous notions of language and gender (Lakoff 1985; Fishman 1978; Spender 1980,1985) from more contemporary ideas. For example, although Eckert (2013: 45) reinforces the distinction between male and female linguistic tendencies (e.g. women are more likely to car pool), she does emphasise the importance of social community over the individual’s gender orientation: ‘the community of practice is the level of social organisation at which people experience the social order […] [and] jointly make sense of that order’. And in this light we can realise the reality a gender binary system presents: it can be a ‘set of constraints that one struggles within’, or replaced by a community of practice, one that a person’s day-to-day actions can change the constraints originally placed (Eckert, 2013: 47). These binary constraints are broken when one gender employs a stylistic feature associated with the other: naturally, we must consider gender, in language and as a whole, as fluid, if we are to account for ‘examples where women adapt to masculine contexts’ (Holmes, 2013: 320). The ‘social constructivist’ (Coates, 1996) approach to language and gender as suggested in the previous paragraph is where the majority of modern researchers focus their analysis. Considering multiple factors, not just biological sex, allows for what Baxter (2010: 21) argues to be the ‘Gender-Multiple Corporation’, in which people’s identities are viewed as a fluid mix of gender, age, language, and personality to name a few. In Baxter’s opinion, femininity or masculinity is a multi-dimensional reality, and is not solely governed by pre-existing gender constructs or ‘narrow stereotypes’ (2010: 21). This approach falls in line with other poststructuralist notions of gender (Butler 1990) which view gender as a performance of identity; the individual constructs their own identity through the way they speak, behave, and enact their chosen gender. And from this, our focus should be on ‘understanding what people actually do with language and how they present themselves relative to these gendered norms’ (Freed, 2014: 629). The language individuals employ to create their identities cannot be confined to a binary, just like how we cannot be expected to speak the same way to everyone we communicate with. Rather, Baxter (2010: 22) finds that gender and the language used to construct it is just one element of ‘our multiple identities’, claiming that our speech styles reflect the notion of ‘gender multiplicity’. A gender multiplicity provides a useful framework for understanding how identity and gender are not synonymous, and that each individual can and will adapt their performance according to how they want to be perceived. Cameron (2008: 145) defines the distinction between a person’s identity and their performance in a metaphor about different types of jeans, and concludes that ‘jean styles are about fashion, not function’. And this is an excellent way of deciphering what is traditionally considered a complex subconscious decision: how a person choses to present themselves to others does not always reflect their inner psychological traits or affiliation to a biological marker. Rather, these discourse-acts symbolise the language user’s ‘identification with one group and their lack of identification with another’ (Cameron, 2008: 145). The language user’s choice to use different styles of discourse is not always the result of accommodating for their gender preference, but instead may symbolise their social allegiance to the group they choose to identify with. The key word here is ‘choice’. Cameron’s (2008) argument does not attempt to refute previous research like Lakoff, nor does it try to suggest gender neutrality – it focuses on the concept that users may (sometimes indirectly) choose their language according to their social circle, to their community of practice. Methodology: In order to analyses the use of language in the fitness community on Instagram a list of standard-use ‘gym jargon’ was created (see appendix A) using the USN ‘Guide to Gym Jargon’. As USN is one of the largest weightlifting/fitness companies with a large active user-base for their online forums it was felt that their guide would adequately represent the common language used in fitness related posts in online social media. After this, 14 weightlifting athletes with over 100,000 followers on Instagram, 7 males and 7 females, were chosen. Limiting the search to people with a large follower base meant that they were considered popular enough within the fitness community of practice (if they don’t have followers, they’re not mainstream, thus they are not using the appropriate linguistic styles for their chosen community). The random sample method collected 10 fitness related posts (concerning types of training or diet) from each participant. The language used in each post, including hashtags, was compared to the list of terms to see how often each gender used language in this community of practice. A total of 140 posts were analysed according to this list of ‘gym terms’. A further 6 words were added to this list after their popular use was apparent in a large amount of the posts, resulting in a 34-word long list of ‘gym terms’ for analysis. This data collection process proved a simple and time effective way of collecting large amounts of specific variables for a small but concrete quantitative analysis as the community in question can be controlled to a certain level of accuracy. Finally, a qualitative analysis focused on specific posts made in order to explain how certain linguistic features were used by both genders. This ensured a good mix between quantitative and qualitative analysis and provided a thorough and holistic view of this sociolinguistic phenomenon. All standard ethical considerations were made during the process of this study according to the ‘Code of Practice’ (University of Leicester, 2015). Because all data was publicly available, the risk of harm coming to the participants was minimal. Results: This study explores the influence of Communities of Practice on language use between men and women. Previous research suggests that biological gender is the primary determining factor in how men and women use language. Key findings include multiple correlations between how men use language similarly to women in the context of their community of practice (see figure 1), with 9 out of 17 words were used by both men and women, demonstrating that 52% of the terms were shared in both groups. Figure 1 – Visualisation of gym term usage among genders. Out of the 28 terms suggested by the USN guide, only 12 were used in total, with 17 not being used at all in either groups, and with only 4 overlapping in male and female groups. This provided a 33% similarity in terms of USN gym jargon used between both men and women. However, out of the 6 terms deemed as most common by the researcher, 5 were used in both male and female groups. This combined total overlap, 9 words (4 from USN and 5 from popularity-additions) used by both genders, out of the 17 words used in either group, results in the 52% similarity between both male and female discourse. Words: Female Male Pump 8 8 Gains 5 8 Shredded 6 5 Let's' 6 4 Burn 4 3 Guns 3 0 Figure 2 – 6 most commonly used terms. The most commonly used 6 words (see figure 2) demonstrate the overlap between these two groups, with terms like ‘pump’ and ‘shredded’ being used almost equally. However, other terms like ‘freak’ and ‘guns’ were mainly used by one gender only. Discussion: The gym provided a well-defined group that traditionally represented an imbalanced gender binary favouring men with the language associated having been thought to be masculinised because of this male-dominated dichotomy. I chose to explore this popular belief that men in the fitness community exacerbate the gender language binary, to see if modern evidence aligns with the stereotype. The results demonstrated that although a majority of words used are shared, this limited majority does not discount the fact that this community of practice is still hugely dominated by what is considered by other researchers a typically ‘masculinised’ language (Lakoff, 1975; Spender, 1980). For example, the most popular terms among women (see figure 2) like ‘guns’, ‘pump’ and ‘burn’ are synonymous with aggression and force, and could indicate that this is still a male dominated community of practice. The reason for this use of what Baxter (2010: 30) considers ‘’masculinised language’ could be a female desire to be subvert their subordinate role in social discourse, and attempt to prove that they are as good as men by adopting this into their own style of speech. This may be the reason for why so many aggressive terms were common between both men and women, with women using others – such as ‘guns’ – more than men. However, an alternate view could quite easily also suggest that this is an example of Spender’s (1980) notion that when women speak they must do it in ‘a form acceptable to men’ (1985:84), which in this case, is through aggressive language. However, it is interesting to note that certain examples from the data do demonstrate an amalgamation between what is considered ‘masculinised’ and ‘feminine’ speech styles. For example, in one female post the use of the down-toner ‘little guns’ (see figure 3) softens the impact of the sentence, making it seem less aggressive and intimidating. This delicate register could be indicative of the participant’s attempt at neutralising traits of both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ styles. Another example comes from another female post commenting ‘shreddssssss again babe’ (see figure 4), in which the aggressive term is satirised by the affectionate form of address. Both of these examples flout binary definitions of gender associated with these ‘folk linguistic beliefs’ (Freed, 2014: 625), suggesting they be potentially too simplistic to accommodate for blends and mixtures between both genders. The amalgamations of what was considered ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ linguistic tropes suggest that women refuse to be subordinated by their gender, and so are appropriating elements of both binaries in order to create a neutral language that is defined by its community of practice -the gym - and not by any biologically-based gender label (Cameron, 2009). Figure 3. Figure 4. This gender neutral language is also evident in the way males communicated themselves in the dataset. Focusing on how each gender performs (Butler, 1990) the opposite gender’s associated language, or rather, how ‘men “do” what is traditionally labelled as femininity’ (Freed, 2014: 629) indicates that gender and language cannot be defined by a simple binary opposition. It is interesting how the data demonstrates what Cameron (1995: 202) called the ‘increasing complexity and fuzziness of gender boundaries’. For example, one male post who asks ‘what’s everyone training today?’ (see figure 5) uses the interrogative in a ‘cooperative’ manner with the audience to create a more comfortable and personal event – a trait that would be considered ‘feminine’ by previous researchers (Baxter, 2010: 20). Another male post uses affectionate language such as ‘Love you[rself]’ (see figure 6). Again there is evidence of men using language that has been previously associated with the opposite gender. Despite the obvious ‘bodily display’ behaviour pictured in figures 5 and 6, the language of interaction is not sexist, banter, or sexually promiscuous, as previous research had considered this ‘Locker Room’ language to be (Baxter, 2010: 30). Rather, it would seem the persons are providing a mutual exchange of support for the audience, while retaining ‘masculinised’ language like ‘hitting’. Here we can suggest that the amalgamation of both previously considered ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ language is not a result of the person’s gender, but instead the community of practice which provides a ‘social order’ in which the constraints ‘imposed by a gender order and by the linguistic practices of communities’ may be changed (Eckert, 2013: 47). Figure 5. Figure 6. The data presented demonstrates the new perspective for analysing gender and language that is required if we want to account for the diversity of gender practices in modern discourse communities. By focussing on a simple binary opposition, gender and language research cannot surpass anything but the most basic groupings of either ‘man’ or not ‘man’, which is subordinately considered ‘woman’ (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005: 586). The data collected for this study illustrates that, although in the early stages of its development, focussing on gender through the lens of a community of practice can better accommodate for gender fluid linguistic acts. CMC provided an interesting social arena in which to analyse gender and language as the medium did not exist when most previous research was conducted. As CMC still renders the user’s gender visible because of ‘features of discourse style’ (Herring, 2005: 204), the data and results presented in this study suggest that gender was not as influencing in social discourses as the communities of practice in which the language is used. With words like ‘pump’ being used proportionately across both male and female discourses in the sample, it is plausible that in this specific online community of practice, language has elements of gender-neutrality, albeit in a limited sphere of use. Conclusion: This study set out to explore whether previous research into gender and language still aligns with modern usage in specific online communities of practice. The results found that a majority of the ‘gym terms’ were shared by both genders, despite most of the terms representing traditionally ‘masculine’ tropes like aggression and directness. From this, it could be suggested that biological gender is not the primary influencing factor in word choice, but rather the community of practice in which the language is used. However, this study is not without limitations. As stated, the very minor 52% majority cannot confidently counter previous research such as Lakoff’s (1975) and Spender’s (1980). Furthermore, the limited control over the definition of the community in question, as well as the inaccurate USN guide for what terms are commonly used, leaves this field open to further research. Due to time constraints this study could only analyse a small sample of data and a specific community, resulting in a narrow applicability to other research – something which could be rectified in follow-up studies. Also, CMC as a new social arena for interactions could not be explored fully due to the specific scope of this study. However, possible future research should look more into the influence of CMC as medium of expressing gender, as this new channel of communication presents a level of social anonymity that was absent during the vast majority of previous studies into language and gender.  Bibliography: Baxter, J. (2010) The Language of Female Leadership, Chippenham: Palgrave Macmillan. Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005) ‘Identity and Interaction: A Sociocultural Linguistic Approach’ in Discourse Studies, 7 (4-5): pp.586-614. Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge. Cameron, D. 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(1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mills, S. and Mullany, L. (2011) Language, Gender and Feminism: Theory, Methodology and Practice, New York: Routledge. Papacharissi, Z. (2011) A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, New York: Routledge. Robins, G. (2015) Doing Social Network Research: Network-based Research Design for Social Scientists, London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Segal, L. (1994) Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism, Dorset: Prism. Spender, D. (1980) Man Made Language, New York: Routledge. Talbot, M. (2010) Language and Gender (2nd Ed.), Cambridge: Polity Press. University of Leicester (2015) Code of Practice. Available at: https://www2.le.ac.uk/institution/committees/research-ethics/code-of-practice (Accessed: 01/02/2017).  Appendix A: - List of Gym Terms from USN ‘Guide to Gym Jargon’ and commonly used words. Gym Terms:   Aesthetics Maxing Beasting Miring Boulders Muscle Confusion Bro-Science Newbie Bulking Prepping Cardio Bunny Progression Overload Cheap Reps Skull Crushers Cutting Stacking DOMS Swole Forced Reps V-Taper Freak Vascular Full Mass Gains Let’s Guns Pump Iron Maiden Savage Isolation Burn Judy Dench Shredded  Appendix B: Instagram Posts: Student: 139015798 11