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Breaking Conversational Norms on a Portuguese Users Network: Men as Adjudicators of Politeness?

This article examines messages exchanged via asynchronous CMC at a Portuguese university that would be considered impolite in face-to-face interaction (cf. Brown & Levinson, 1987; Culpeper, 1996; Oliveira, 1985, 2003; Oliveira Medeiros, 1994). A comparison by gender was conducted of the degree and nature of participation in the university Users' network, focusing on transgressions and chastisement involving inappropriate message content, message form and address form selection. Although women participate less often in discussions on the network, messages posted by women are more often treated as transgressions, while men more often initiate responses demonstrating concern with established norms of politeness and the importance of adhering to them. These results confirm traditional gender roles of men as interactionally dominant and representative of “authority,” but do not support findings for English-language CMC that women are more concerned with politeness than men (Herring, 1994; Smith, McLaughlin & Osborn,1997); rather, Portuguese men on the university network assume the role of “politeness adjudicators.”