A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN LEXICAL FEATURES OF SMS TEXT MESSAGING: A STUDY OF PAKISTANI UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

Pakistani university students. With the rapid expansion of mobile-mediated communication, SMS has become a significant site for examining informal and innovative language practices influenced by social factors such as gender. Adopting a qualitative and descriptive research design, the study draws data froma purposive sample of 100 university students (50 male and 50 female), aged 21–24, enrolled at the University of the Punjab, Government College University, and the University of Education. A total of 300 SMS messages were collected over three days and analyzed using content analysis within the framework of Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA). The study focuses on four key lexical features: initialisms, clippings, contractions, and letter–number homophones. The findings reveal clear gendered patterns in SMS communication. Male participants showed a higher frequency of initialisms, clippings, and contractions, reflecting a preference for brevity and efficiency. In contrast, female participants used letter number homophones more frequently, indicating a more expressive and creative texting style. The study concludes that gender plays a significant role in shaping lexical choices in SMS discourse within the Pakistani sociocultural context.