Linguistic sexism in a digitally native news outlet : A study on linguistic sexism at lexical and discourse levels in Buzzfeed News

Abstract: In 2018, most news articles are consumed online from a digitally native news outlet and it is therefore appropriate to examine the presence of linguistic sexism in the digitally native news site Buzzfeed News. The material is made up of 159 articles collected from Buzzfeed News. Selected features at the lexical and discourse levels are analysed using a quantitative method with qualitative elements. The selected features at the lexical level include generic pronouns and nouns, focused on the affix -man- and naming practices for females and males. At the discourse level, the selected features include how females and males are described in terms of their relationships, appearance and age-related words. Linguistic sexism is found to be expressed at both the lexical and discourse levels in the material. It is mainly expressed in naming practices, the use of relationship words and age-related words.