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Style and Content in E-Mails and Letters to Male and Female Friends

University of Leicester

Zazie Todd

University of Leeds

Matthew Bland

Michael Holmes

Nuzibun Khanom

Hannah Pike

University of Leicester

This study examined gender differences in the style and content of e-mails and letters sent to friends on the topic of how time had been spent in the previous summer. Gender differences were found in both style and content supporting previous findings that female communication is more relational and expressive than that of males and focuses more upon personal and domestic topics. Women used the less formal stylistic conventions of e-mails to signal excitability in different ways to their male and female friends, whereas men ended their communications in a more relational way to their female than their male friends, and the nature of this difference varied according to the type of communication used.

Key Words: gender • language • e-mails • letters • friends

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