PICE: Four strategies for BBS talk in Taiwan and their interactions with gender configuration and topic orientation

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LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS 8.2:417-446, 2007 2007-0-008-002-000246-1

PICE: Four Strategies for BBS Talk in Taiwan and

their Interactions with Gender Configuration and

Topic Orientation

∗

Wen-yu Chiang

Pei-Shu Tsai

National Taiwan University

National Yang-Ming University

The relationship between gender and discourse has been the focus of a substantial body of research over the past decade. Theories of gender discourse are generally based on one of three models: (a) the dominance model, (b) the difference model, or (c) the postmodern paradigm. This study applies those three models to data found in 189 conversations collected from BBS sites in Taiwan. Specifically, this paper investigates the effect of gender configuration (single- vs. cross-gender) and topic orientation (informational vs. emotional) on the use of four particular strategies in Mandarin BBS discourse: use of sentence-final particles (p), intensifiers (i), code switching (c), and emoticons (e), which together form the acronym PICE. Our data show significant relationships between: (a) gender configuration and the use of utterance-final particles, intensifiers, and emoticons of embarrassment; (b) topic orientation and the use of happiness emoticons. The data also demonstrate effects of gender-topic interaction on the use of code switching. Our analysis illustrates how each of the three models of gender discourse above can explain part of the interaction between gender configuration, topic orientation, and PICE. Our results also demonstrate the importance of comparing single-gender with cross-gender data to investigate gender-based patterns in communication.

Key words: PICE, gender configuration, topic orientation, BBS communication, theory of gender discourse, Mandarin, Taiwan

∗_{We would like to extend our thanks to Chung-Ping Cheng for his generous help with statistical}

details, and to Tanya Visceglia for her insightful comments and discussion. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Second Seoul International Conference on Discourse and Cognitive Linguistics, June 7-8, 2003.

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Wen-yu Chiang and Pei-Shu Tsai 446

PICE：四種台灣 BBS 對談中的策略及其

與性別結構和話題導向的交互影響

江文瑜

蔡佩舒

國立台灣大學

國立陽明大學

性別與言談間的關係是過去十年來豐富研究中的重要焦點。關於性別言談的理論主要基於三個模型：(a) 支配模型，(b) 相異模型，(c) 後現代模式。本研究使用這三個模型來解釋從台灣BBS 站上蒐集到的 189 份對話。本文旨在探討性別結構（單一性別相對於跨性別）與話題導向（資訊交流相對於情感交流）如何影響中文 BBS 對話中的四種特殊策略：分別為語尾助詞 (P)，加強語氣 (I)，語碼轉換 (C)，及表情符號 (E)，統稱為 PICE。研究結果顯示以下有顯著的關聯：(a) 性別結構與語尾助詞、加強語氣、及尷尬表情符號的使用，(b) 話題導向與快樂表情符號的使用。結果也顯示性別與話題間的交互作用影響語碼轉換的使用。本文除描述以上三個性別言談模型如何解釋性別結構、話題導向，與 PICE 之間的交互影響，亦證明利用單性別與跨性別資料之間的比較來研究以性別為基礎的溝通模式之重要性。關鍵詞：PICE，性別結構，話題導向，BBS 溝通，性別言談理論，華語，台灣