Post by Souriquois on Nov 22, 2018 16:46:37 GMT -4
Canadians are more polite on Twitter, Americans more negative — study looked at 40M tweets
Trump is 'one of the only celebrities who didn't turn the GPS feature on his phone off'
It seems the stereotype that Canadians tend to be more positive and polite than Americans is true — at least when it comes to language use on Twitter. Sorry!
A new study published by McMaster University researchers Wednesday analyzed nearly 40 million tweets from both countries including some from Donald Trump during his campaign to become President.
While the team found the vast majority (99.66 per cent) of words, emojis and emoticons were not drastically different, a list of words which were typed out most disproportionately by Twitter users in Canada and our neighbours to the south shows a distinct difference in tone.
After compiling lists of those words the linguistics experts had study participants evaluate the words and determine what they think the personality of the person who used them would be.
The result? National stereotypes seem to be connected — at least in part— to the words people use online. Researchers found Canadians tend to be nice, while Americans are more negative and assertive.
"What you get back out of that is a really, really accurate recreation of the national character stereotypes," explained Bryor Snefjella, a PhD candidate in the school's department of linguistics and languages and lead author of the study.
"Canadians say 'great,' 'amazing,' 'good,' he explained. "There are lots of things about sports, 'team,' 'game,' 'awesome' … 'Leafs' gets in there, 'Habs' does too."
But across the U.S. border, the words used take a turn.
"You're talking about words like 'hate,' lots of slang, 'bro,' 'brah' and net-speak. 'Hurt' comes out as an American word, lots of negative, bad stuff and lots of words you wouldn't want to say in front of your grandma."
The study also revealed some interesting points when it comes to emojis and emoticons.
Snefjella said Americans tend to use more emojis — tops picks including the face crying tears of joy, skull and face with hearts for eyes — while Canadians tend to spell out their smiley faces using punctuation .
Meanwhile, the emojis Canadians do use are also overwhelmingly positive and include the heart, party horn and maple leaf.
A 'tiny fraction' of Trump
The work follows a similar study Snefjella and his co-author Daniel Schmidtke completed in 2016, which looked at three million tweets from both countries.
This time around the tweets the team analyzed were all posted between February 2015 and February 2016. The country of origin for each post was confirmed using GPS coordinates.
In recent years, Twitter has become one of the most popular social media platforms and a tool for politicians and members of the public to interact.
U.S. President Donald Trump is among the most prolific and high-profile Twitter users today and it seems not even the study could escape his influence, even though he wasn't yet elected when the data was being collected.
"Interestingly he is one of the only celebrities who didn't turn the GPS feature on his phone off," said Snefjella who explained Trump's account popped up while researchers were reviewing some of the most retweeted posts in their data.
"He's in there, a tiny fraction of the 40 million."
Constructing an identity
Snefjella said he and his fellow researchers, Schmidtke and Victor Kuperman, didn't set out to examine national stereotypes.
He noted social psychology studies surveying large numbers of Canadians and Americans have consistently shown national stereotypes are not accurate and have not provided any hard evidence the average citizen of either country has different personality traits than the other.
"The Twitter behaviour we observe doesn't actually reflect the real underlying personality profile of an average American or Canadian," said. Schmidtke.
Instead, the team believes their work indicates that when Canadians and Americans take to Twitter they're essentially creating their national characters through the words they type.
"Maybe it says being Canadian is something we do and one way we do it is through our language choices," said Snefjella.
"Don't just look at study and say 'Ah, of course, Canadians talk nice because they're nice and Americans talk rudely because they're rude.' We're saying exactly not that. What we're arguing for is the possibility of an identity construction strategy through language."
Trump is 'one of the only celebrities who didn't turn the GPS feature on his phone off'
It seems the stereotype that Canadians tend to be more positive and polite than Americans is true — at least when it comes to language use on Twitter. Sorry!
A new study published by McMaster University researchers Wednesday analyzed nearly 40 million tweets from both countries including some from Donald Trump during his campaign to become President.
While the team found the vast majority (99.66 per cent) of words, emojis and emoticons were not drastically different, a list of words which were typed out most disproportionately by Twitter users in Canada and our neighbours to the south shows a distinct difference in tone.
After compiling lists of those words the linguistics experts had study participants evaluate the words and determine what they think the personality of the person who used them would be.
The result? National stereotypes seem to be connected — at least in part— to the words people use online. Researchers found Canadians tend to be nice, while Americans are more negative and assertive.
"What you get back out of that is a really, really accurate recreation of the national character stereotypes," explained Bryor Snefjella, a PhD candidate in the school's department of linguistics and languages and lead author of the study.
"Canadians say 'great,' 'amazing,' 'good,' he explained. "There are lots of things about sports, 'team,' 'game,' 'awesome' … 'Leafs' gets in there, 'Habs' does too."
But across the U.S. border, the words used take a turn.
"You're talking about words like 'hate,' lots of slang, 'bro,' 'brah' and net-speak. 'Hurt' comes out as an American word, lots of negative, bad stuff and lots of words you wouldn't want to say in front of your grandma."
The study also revealed some interesting points when it comes to emojis and emoticons.
Snefjella said Americans tend to use more emojis — tops picks including the face crying tears of joy, skull and face with hearts for eyes — while Canadians tend to spell out their smiley faces using punctuation .
Meanwhile, the emojis Canadians do use are also overwhelmingly positive and include the heart, party horn and maple leaf.
A 'tiny fraction' of Trump
The work follows a similar study Snefjella and his co-author Daniel Schmidtke completed in 2016, which looked at three million tweets from both countries.
This time around the tweets the team analyzed were all posted between February 2015 and February 2016. The country of origin for each post was confirmed using GPS coordinates.
In recent years, Twitter has become one of the most popular social media platforms and a tool for politicians and members of the public to interact.
U.S. President Donald Trump is among the most prolific and high-profile Twitter users today and it seems not even the study could escape his influence, even though he wasn't yet elected when the data was being collected.
"Interestingly he is one of the only celebrities who didn't turn the GPS feature on his phone off," said Snefjella who explained Trump's account popped up while researchers were reviewing some of the most retweeted posts in their data.
"He's in there, a tiny fraction of the 40 million."
Constructing an identity
Snefjella said he and his fellow researchers, Schmidtke and Victor Kuperman, didn't set out to examine national stereotypes.
He noted social psychology studies surveying large numbers of Canadians and Americans have consistently shown national stereotypes are not accurate and have not provided any hard evidence the average citizen of either country has different personality traits than the other.
"The Twitter behaviour we observe doesn't actually reflect the real underlying personality profile of an average American or Canadian," said. Schmidtke.
Instead, the team believes their work indicates that when Canadians and Americans take to Twitter they're essentially creating their national characters through the words they type.
"Maybe it says being Canadian is something we do and one way we do it is through our language choices," said Snefjella.
"Don't just look at study and say 'Ah, of course, Canadians talk nice because they're nice and Americans talk rudely because they're rude.' We're saying exactly not that. What we're arguing for is the possibility of an identity construction strategy through language."
This is an interesting study. I myself cannot talk to most Americans, they piss me off, as they often go right for the throat. Most of the users I have gotten in big fights with, really don't like, or have on ignore on ABF are American, for example. This is not intentional on my part, it was just the pattern.
The study says there is no difference in personality traits between Americans and Canadians (and really, no other culture), but the way they communicate is drastically different and are creating their national identity through communications styles. And I think there may be unwritten social rules in a culture which may cross over online, like there is a stereotype that Canadians are polite, but really, it is more that there are social pressures in Canadian society to communicate in a certain way. Canadians can be really cutting and backhanded with insults, moreso than Americans or other nationalities can be, and I think this is a results of social pressures. The theory about why Canadians communicate this way goes way back to the early colonial days, when people had to depend on each other to get through harsh winters, so they were best not to piss someone off in case they need their help. About half of early European settlers in Canada died during the first winter, and cooperating made survival chances much higher. Whereas in the US, while there are areas with harsh winters (Dakotas, etc), the more populated areas aren't as bad so depending on others for survival is not as necessary.
Though in my communication with Americans, I should point out that I tend to only butt heads with white Americans, whereas I can get along with Americans of colour (only three of the folks on ABF I have gotten into it with are PoC), and I am wondering if this has anything to do with the pressure they feel to be non-threatening to white folks, so they adjust the way they communicate.