ISSN: 2226-6348
Open access
This study examines the utilization of speech acts in Facebook status updates among Arabic-speaking communities in Iraq, with a particular focus on gender differences. The primary objective of this research is to identify the most frequent types of speech acts used in Facebook status updates by Iraqi males and females. The analysis encompasses a comprehensive examination of 1534 Facebook status updates gathered over a two-month period, categorized according to Searle's speech acts taxonomy. The findings reveal diverse patterns of speech act usage within the Iraqi Facebook community. The study identifies ten distinct speech act categories, including Emojis, Directives, Images, Expressives, Humor, Representatives (Assertives), Declaratives, Quotations, God's Invocation, and Commissives. These categories shed light on the prevalent modes of communication within this demographic, highlighting the roles of emotional expression, commands, visual elements, information sharing, and humor. Furthermore, this study investigates the impact of gender on speech act production among Iraqi Facebook users. The analysis uncovers notable disparities between genders in the usage of speech acts. While both males and females commonly employ directives to issue commands or instructions, males exhibit a slightly higher frequency. Females incorporate emojis more frequently into their updates, emphasizing emotions and adding visual cues. Moreover, males demonstrate a higher frequency of humor, suggesting a greater tendency to use humor as a means of expression. These findings contribute to a better understanding of speech act behavior within Arabic-speaking communities in Iraq, specifically within the context of Facebook status updates. The study highlights the significance of gender differences and cultural factors in shaping linguistic practices and online communication patterns. The insights gained from this research can inform future studies on speech acts, social interaction, and gender dynamics within online communities.
Abbood, H. (2016). Investigating the use of the two speech acts of invitation and offer Among Iraqi EFL University Learners. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University Science Malaysia. USM. Malaysia.
Abdalhadi, H., Al-Khawaldeh, N., Al Huneety, A., & Mashaqba, B. (2023). A corpus-based pragmatic analysis of Jordanians Facebook status updates during COVID-19. Ampersand, 10, 100099
Abdalhadi, H., Al-Khawaldeh, N., Al Huneety, A., & Mashaqba, B. (2023). A corpus-based pragmatic analysis of Jordanians Facebook status updates during COVID-19. Ampersand, 10, 100099.
Abdul Sattar, H. Q., & Farnia, M. (2014). A cross-cultural study of request speech act: Iraqi and Malay students. Applied research on English language, 3(2), 35-54.
Al Sad, A. (2021). Gendered use of language in Facebook status updates among Jordanian and American youths: A sociopragmatic study. West Virginia University.
Al-Hilu, M. J. (2020). THE USE OF METAPHOR IN IRAQI COMPLIMENTS: A CULTURE–BASED STUDY. PalArch's Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 17(7), 8245-8264.
Al-Hour, I. I. (2019). The Speech Act of Congratulation in Palestinian Society: Positive Politeness and Gender Differences.
Ali, S. A. (2020). Gender and Supportive Moves of Criticism: Evidence from Iraqi-Arabic and Malay Speech Communities. Journal of the College of Languages (JCL), (42), 27-50.
Al?Sa’Di, R. A., & Hamdan, J. M. (2005). “Synchronous online chat” English: Computer?mediated communication. World Englishes, 24(4), 409-424.
Alzeebaree, Y., & Yavuz, M. A. (2017). Realization of the speech acts of request and apology by middle eastern EFL learners. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 13(11), 7313-7327.
Austin, J. L. (1962). 1962: How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Baker, S. (2013). Conceptualising the use of Facebook in ethnographic research: as tool, as data and as context. Ethnography and Education, 8(2), 131-145.
Banikalef, A. E. A. A. (2019). The Impact of Culture and Gender on the Production of Online Speech Acts among Jordanian Facebook Users. International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES), 19(2).
Banikalef, A. E. A. A. (2019). The Impact of Culture and Gender on the Production of Online Speech Acts among Jordanian Facebook Users. International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES), 19(2).
Banikalef, A., Maros, M., & Aladdin, A. (2014). Linguistic Analysis of Humor in Jordanian Arabic among Young Jordanians Facebookers. Arab World English Journal, 5(3).
Batenburg, A., & Bartels, J. (2017). Keeping up online appearances: How self-disclosure on Facebook affects perceived respect and likability in the professional context. Computers in Human Behavior, 74, 265-276.
Carr, C. T., Schrock, D. B., & Dauterman, P. (2012). Speech acts within Facebook status messages. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 31(2), 176-196.
Coates, J., & Pichler, P. (2023). Language and gender–the turn to discourse. The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis.
Coninx, S., & Newen, A. (2018). Theories of understanding others: The need for a new account and the guiding role of the person model theory. Belgrade Philosophical Annual, (31), 127-153.
Gray, J. (2012) men are from mars , women are from Venus: practical guide for improving communication .UK:Harper Collins
Guo, S., Yan, Z., Zhang, K., Zuo, W., & Zhang, L. (2019). Toward convolutional blind denoising of real photographs. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF conference on computer vision and pattern recognition (pp. 1712-1722).
Herring, S. C. (2008). Gender and power in on-line communication. The handbook of language and gender/ed. by J. Holmes and M. Meyerhoff.
Howlader, P., Pal, K. K., Cuzzocrea, A., & Kumar, S. M. (2018, April). Predicting facebook-users' personality based on status and linguistic features via flexible regression analysis techniques. In Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM symposium on applied computing (pp. 339-345).
Ilyas, S., & Khushi, Q. (2012). Facebook status updates: A speech act analysis. Academic research international, 3(2), 500-507.
Jamtvedt, G., Young, J. M., Kristoffersen, D. T., O'Brien, M. A., & Oxman, A. D. (2006). Does telling people what they have been doing change what they do? A systematic review of the effects of audit and feedback. Quality & safety in health care, 15(6), 433.
Jasim, M. (2017). Refusals of requests and offers in Iraqi Arabic and British English. The University of Manchester (United Kingdom).
Jung, E. H., & Sundar, S. S. (2022). Older adults’ activities on Facebook: can affordances predict intrinsic motivation and well-being?. Health Communication, 37(5), 597-607.
Kaye, L. K., Darker, G. M., Rodriguez-Cuadrado, S., Wall, H. J., & Malone, S. A. (2022). The Emoji Spatial Stroop Task: Exploring the impact of vertical positioning of emoji on emotional processing. Computers in Human Behavior, 132, 107267.
Khalaf, Y. M. R. A. K., & Rezk, M. (2019). A Pragmatic Analysis of the Language of Facebook Posts and Status Updates. ???? ????? ?????? ?? ??????, 19(????? ?????? ??? ????? ??????), 1-40.?
Kissau, S. (2006). Gender differences in second language motivation: An investigation of micro-and macro-level influences. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(1), 73-96.
Krippendorff, K. (2011). Agreement and information in the reliability of
coding. Communication methods and measures, 5(2), 93-112.
Lakoff, R. (1975). Robin Lakoff. Language and Woman's Place.
Lakoff, R., & Lakoff, R. T. (2004). Language and woman's place: Text and commentaries (Vol. 3). Oxford University Press, USA.
Mahmood, J. A., & Ali, O. M. (2018). The Complimenting Behavior of Iraqi College Students: Same-Gender Study. International Journal of English Linguistics, 8(5).
Maybin, J., & Mercer, N. (Eds.). (1996). Using English from conversation to canon (Vol. 2). Psychology Press.
Mohammed, A. A. M. (2020). Investigating the Use of the Speech Act of Invitation by Iraqi EFL Non-Departmental Students. Journal of University of Babylon for Humanities, 28(6), 13-26.
Mohammed, A. A. M. (2020). Investigating the Use of the Speech Act of Invitation by Iraqi EFL Non-Departmental Students. Journal of University of Babylon for Humanities, 28(6), 13-26.
Mohanlal, S., Sharada, B. A., Fatihi, A. R., Gusain, L., Bayer, J. M., Ravichandran, S. M., ... & Thirumalai, S. (2013). A speech act analysis of status updates on Facebook: The case of Ghanaian university students.
Mustikawati, M., Hendrawati, H., Rahayu, W., & Karim, A. (2023). Effective Communication on Adolescent Delinquency at SMK Jaya Buana. Journal of Community Engagement in Health, 6(1), 73-78.
Okunna, C. S. (2002). A quick look at development communication. Teaching Mass Communication: A Multidimensional Approach, Enugu: New Generation Books.
Perner, J., Priewasser, B., & Roessler, J. (2018). The practical other: Teleology and its development. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 43(2), 99-114.
Power, S. A. (2014). Where I end, where you begin.
Rasheeda, N. J. (2020). A Pragmatic Analysis of the Speech Act of Request among Iraqi EFL
Rodrigues, H., Almeida, F., Figueiredo, V., & Lopes, S. L. (2019). Tracking e-learning through published papers: A systematic review. Computers & Education, 136, 87-98.
Rothen, S., Deleuze, J., Karila, L., Achab, S., Thorens, G., Khazaal, Y., ... & Billieux, J. (2016). OR-91: what are people actually doing on Facebook?. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 5(S1), 38-39.
Rusu, M. (2023). ASPECTS OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION–the exchange of communicative intentions. Review of Artistic Education, (26), 220-228.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J. R. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In Speech acts (pp. 59-82). Brill.
Smailovi?, J., Sluban, B., & Mozeti?, I. (2015). Sentiment of Emojis. Plos one, 10(12), e0144296-e0144296.
Stoll, B. A. (2015). The effects of humorous Facebook posts on messenger credibility and social attractiveness. The Hilltop Review, 7(2), 3.
Sun, Y., Wang, G., & Feng, H. (2021). Linguistic studies on social media: A bibliometric analysis. Sage Open, 11(3), 21582440211047572.
Sun, Y., Wang, G., & Feng, H. (2021). Linguistic studies on social media: A bibliometric analysis. Sage Open, 11(3), 21582440211047572.
Syafitri, W. (2020). Expressive speech acts in the statuses of the Facebook users. PARADIGM: Journal of Language and Literary Studies, 3(1), 1-10.
Talbot, M. (2010). Language and Gender. (Cambridge. Polity.
Tanaka, L. (2004). Gender, language and culture: A study of Japanese television interview discourse (Vol. 69). John Benjamins Publishing.
Tandoc Jr, E. C., Ferrucci, P., & Duffy, M. (2015). Facebook use, envy, and depression among college students: Is facebooking depressing?. Computers in human behavior, 43, 139-146.
Tang, Y., & Hew, K. F. (2018). Emoticon, emoji, and sticker use in computer-mediated communications: Understanding its communicative function, impact, user behavior, and motive. In New Media for Educational Change: Selected Papers from HKAECT 2018 International Conference (pp. 191-201). Springer Singapore.
Tannen, D. (1994). Gender and discourse. Oxford University Press.
Tannen, D. (2007). Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse (Vol. 26). Cambridge University Press.
Tannen, D. (2007). Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse (Vol. 26). Cambridge University Press.
Theocharis, Y., & Jungherr, A. (2021). Computational social science and the study of political communication. Political Communication, 38(1-2), 1-22.
Tossell, C. C., Kortum, P., Shepard, C., Barg-Walkow, L. H., Rahmati, A., & Zhong, L. (2012). A longitudinal study of emoticon use in text messaging from smartphones. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 659-663.
Tsoumou, J. M. (2020). Analysing speech acts in politically related Facebook communication. Journal of Pragmatics, 167, 80-97.
Uchida, A. (1992). When “difference” is “dominance”: A critique of the “anti-power-based” cultural approach to sex differences1. Language in society, 21(4), 547-568.
Uchida, A. (1992). When “difference” is “dominance”: A critique of the “anti-power-based” cultural approach to sex differences1. Language in society, 21(4), 547-568.
Valdés-Stauber, J. (2023). Verstehen–Zwischen Haltung und Methode. Verlag Karl Alber.
Wharton, L., & Soper, D. (2022). Rethinking Organizational Structures to Support Digital Innovation.
Wilson, R. E., Gosling, S. D., & Graham, L. T. (2012). A review of Facebook research in the social sciences. Perspectives on psychological science, 7(3), 203-220.
Wöhler, J., & Reinhardt, R. (2021). The users' perspective on how creativity techniques help in the idea generation process—A repertory grid study. Creativity and Innovation Management, 30(1), 144-163
Yerznkyan, Y., & Movsisyan, D. (2021). ON THE RELATIONAL NATURE OF UNDERSTANDING. Foreign Languages in Higher Education, 25(2 (31)), 41-51
Yusof, M., & Harun, K. (2015). Analisis lakuan tutur dalam ruangan status
Facebook. Malaysian Journal of Communication, 31(2), 151-168.
Zhang, J., Wang, W., Xia, F., Lin, Y. R., & Tong, H. (2020). Data-driven computational social science: A survey. Big Data Research, 21, 100145.
(Abdulbaqi & Fakhruddin, 2024)
Abdulbaqi, I. A., & Fakhruddin, W. F. W. W. (2024). Speech Acts in Facebook Status Updates: Exploring Gender Differences in Iraqi Arabic-Speaking Communities. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 13(3), 1994–2017.
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode