Amna Mukhtar2012-10-182012-10-182012https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/619The purpose of the current study is to examine gender differences among the students of various age groups who use Facebook. The study focuses on gender differences on lexical as well as grammatical level. The gender based differences are scrutinized at four basic parameters such as: new word formation, reduction, deletion, and insertion. These parameters were further divided into clipping, onomatopoeic compounding, blending, conversion, abbreviation at lexical level and copula, subject and punctuation deletion and insertion, code mixing and capitalization on grammatical level. A sample of hundred participants (from Facebook) was chosen to answer the research questions. The Facebook users were divided into four distinct groups depending on their age to confirm gender based linguistic differences. The number of messages sent by each participant and the total number of words were calculated. The messages were coded for lexical as well as grammatical features. The frequencies of the lexical and grammatical features were counted and converted into proportions by dividing the total frequency by the total word count and multiplying by hundred to yield frequency per hundred words. The frequency of lexical and grammatical features was measured to prove the males' and females' use of any particular feature. The results indicate that males and females not only use different stylistic features but linguistic features as well. The study shows that females tend more towards insertion, whereas males are more inclined towards deletion. It has also been noted that females are the dominant users of punctuation marks, emoticons, abbreviations, acronyms, emoticons, and onomatopoeic. On the other hand, males tend to delete copula, subject, and punctuation marks.en-USCyber LanguageIdentifying Gender DifferencesEnglish LanguageThesis