The Effect of Gender on the Nativisation and Lexical Density of Tweets by Saudi Bloggers: A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

This study aims to investigate specific linguistic features exhibited by Saudi nationals on Twitter. Specifically, it aims to examine the frequency of nativised lexis from English and Turkish origins and how they are adapted into Saudi Arabic in short text tweets, focusing on their frequency compared to their Arabic equivalents as well as the lexical density of the tweets. It also aims to explore the effect that gender may have on the frequency of English and Turkish nativised lexis compared to their Arabic equivalents as well as on the lexical density of the tweets. The researcher built a specialised corpus from Saudi female and male nationals on Twitter. To test whether the differences between Saudi female and male bloggers on Twitter in terms of the frequency of English and Turkish nativised lexis compared to their Arabic equivalents and the level of lexical density were statistically significant, inferential statistical tools, i.e. t-test and chi-square were used. The results revealed that the differences in frequency between nativised lexis from English Turkish and their Arabic equivalents based on topic/theme were statistically significant. Concerning the lexical density of the tweets, the results showed the tweets produced by Saudi bloggers on Twitter can be described as lexically dense. The results also revealed that the differences between Saudi females and males regarding the frequency of English and Turkish nativised lexis compared to their Arabic equivalents are statistically significant. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that the tweets produced by Saudi females are more lexically dense than those produced by their male counterparts. The differences between the two genders in terms of lexical density were statistically significant in favour of females. The results pertaining to gender were accounted for in light of two theories, i.e. Order of Indexicality and Communication Accommodation Theory, and one approach, namely Community of Practice