A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet

[IwantToRetire]

By Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics

It has been suggested that the forum-style parenting website Mumsnet is a hub for ‘gender-critical’ feminism, which directly opposes transgender rights, to be practised with little moderation (Livingston, 2018). This presentation reports on the initial stages of a project aiming to investigate that the potential intensification of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet may lead to further marginalisation of transgender people offline (Powys Maurice, 2021). Though studies of non-linguistic transphobic rhetoric on Mumsnet (e.g., Pedersen, 2022; Mackenzie, 2019), and discourse analyses of other radical online communities (e.g., Krendel, 2020) have both occurred, this project is the first to analyse linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet. It also contributes to existing literature surrounding UK-based ‘gender-critical’ feminism; linguistic transphobia; and radical online community discourses.

The presentation explores the rise of potentially ‘gender-critical’ linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet over time through the corpus linguistic (CL) analysis of the ‘Feminism: Sex & Gender Discussions’ board, using three corpora comprising a fifteen-year timeframe: 2008-2013; 2013-2018; and 2018-2023. As the project is still ongoing, preliminary findings will be presented, namely a comparative overview of trends yielded in frequency analyses. Overall, this presentation provides insights into the growing commonality of potentially ‘gender-critical’ feminist rhetoric on Mumsnet and its effect on increasing transphobic discourse on the site.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-corpus-assisted-discourse-analysis-of-linguistic-transphobia-on-mumsnet-tickets-880795271367?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

(I had just finished my favourite tea time treat of catching up on FWR and was going to get back to the grindstone when this popped up on my feed. So have come back as it is too good not to be shared. Enjoy!)

I just can’t get my head around all the elements of this. On the one hand, anything posted here is in the public domain - so can/will be used by others, even in ways we find offensive etc. On the other hand, scraping the whole lot and then calling it a forensic linguistics source, alongside datasets that have (I think?) been complied using material generated as part of criminal investigation proceedings?!

Thank you MNHQ for the prompt response. I echo other posters’ concerns for the wellbeing of the PhD student.

Slight tangent… This isn’t the first time a student has used mumsnet threads to investigate “transphobia” - eg “Women don’t have penises.”: The discourse of transphobia on the online parenting forum Mumsnet I haven’t found the full text of that presentation anywhere, but from the abstract it doesn’t seem to have scraped the site in the way the Aston University folk have - and there doesn’t seem to have been any effort to triangulate individual users in a way that might identify them as implied by the Aston University blurb.

Haven’t there recently been a whole spate of papers that had to be withdrawn from journals because the authors didn’t get their participants specific consent to have their anonymous data included in a publication? These were generally people who knew they were taking part in research too.

Yes.

I see issues here with

1. Academic ethics
2. Data protection/GDPR
3. Defamation/libel
4. Copyright, brand identity
5. potentially endangering women by jigsaw identification
6. Potentially discriminating against women with the protected characteristic of 'gender critical' belief

I could probably go on.

I am unclear to what extent FoLD is run by a bunch of students?

My reading is that it is run by paid staff at the Institute.

'Organisation profile

he mission of the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics is to improve the delivery of justice through the analysis of language.

Our research is always Excellent. It is often Collaborative, in terms of working with beneficiaries, research and higher education institutions and across disciplinary boundaries. It is always Impactful with a view to creating real insight within the broader justice system, often leading to change of policy and practice.

Additionally, through the creation of the University Research Institute our research will become more Sustainable – we have ambitious targets to win further research funds to expand forensic linguistic capability for the UK and the international community. We aim to build a globally significant hub for forensic linguistics research.

The Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics (AIFL) was founded in 2019. It is a substantial expansion of the former Aston Centre for Forensic Linguistics that was founded in 2008 and in the autumn of 2019 we appointed a total of 15 new staff to establish the Institute. This expansion was funded via a £6M investment including a £5.4M award from Research England’s Expanding Excellence in England (E3) fund.'

From the RE site:

'Expanding Excellence in England (E3) Round 1 – Funded
Projects
Aston University
Unit name
Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics
Investment
£5,434,597
Summary
The current Centre for Forensic Linguistics will radically expand into an institute with capacity to exploit strengths in investigative text analysis, linguistics in legal contexts, and forensic speech science. It will also establish capability in language and law and create an open databank for research and practice in forensic linguistics'

https://www.ukri.org/publications/expanding-excellence-in-england-e3-fund-funded-projects/

So what is the involvement of Beautiful Canoe?

They are in a different department at the same uni, they presumably maintain the hardware and design the software for storing and toggling the data that has been ‘donated’.

Text Crimess is an online database that Beautiful Canoe implemented for Professor Tim Grantt at the Centre for Forensic Linguisticss, at Aston Universityy. The Text Crimess website contains a database of curated malicious communications, designed to create a common set of corpora for forensic linguistic researchers. As well as storing the text of malicious communications, Text Crimess allows researchers to run a small number of common, automated, NLPPalgorithms over the curated corpora.

I posted this example of what Beautiful Canoe do upthread. It states "malicious communications" so I imagine it relates to police records and not mumsnet posts, but that's not certain. I couldn't get the page to load last night though.

They are a software building project so they create the online databases.

Oh, look what paper is scheduled to be delivered for the June 2024 IAFLL Regional conference.

P#66 Changes in Linguistic Transphobia on Mumsnet over time, 2008-2023. Eden Palmer (Aston University, UK)

https://www.aston.ac.uk/sites/default/files/IAFLL2024_Programme_Publish21.02.24_2.pdf

Look at the context!

Desecratedcoconut · 18/04/2024 18:08

What even is non-linguistic transphobic rhetoric?

A nonsense, how can rhetoric exist without language? My eyes are rolling like a one armed bandit.

One of the chaps who archived Mumsnet seems to work largely on trying to cross reference and identify people across different platforms.

There's a reference on Twitter to his "discourse analysis" being used in a magistrate's court but no details.

x.com/aifl_aston/status/1291025186276466693?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

I'm sure it's been said upthread, but I for one am deeply, deeply impressed by the intellectual rigour of a study which:

1. Displays bias in the second sentence ("that" instead of "whether") of its description
2. Leads its 5-item bibliography with an article from vice.com
3. Ends its 5-item bibliography with a Pink News piece on how to write a complaint letter about transphobia.

I would agree with the way KellieJayslapdog has interpreted things at the 9.30 post.
I think the original database has been created with the intention of working out the best way to cross-reference for want of a better lay term writing in different fora by the same person. Another of their papers compares social media, essays, oral contributions and so on by people (I have only read the abstract so not sure what ethics or permissions gained here). My reading of the abstract and I only skimmed it was that they were not successful in linking people, but I think they are definitely trying.
I also don’t think Automatic Doxy Guys necessarily mean any ill-will to MN posters and were more thinking about it as a resource to further their knowledge about a theoretical premise (how to link authorship across the internet) but the fact is that such data and processes can be used by people who do bear ill-will (or negative views about MN users). And it does show how little the ethics of using (primarily) women’s data has been considered (or worse, it has been considered and then concerns sidelined).

yetanotherusernameAgain · 18/04/2024 18:48

The word “nonverbal” is used to describe the many ways human beings communicate without overtly using words. Typically, this encompasses body movements (gestures, facial expressions, eye behavior, touching); body positioning (posture, distance from and alignment to others); and vocal behavior (rate, pitch, intensity). Sometimes physical (appearance) and environmental (architecture, design) features are also included.

Ah, it's going to be a very short thesis, including "eye roll," "shrug" and a few other terms!

I guess offering a biscuit could be considered non verbal?

This document, mentioned in Eden's bibliography on the EventBrite page, is available on ResearchGate:
Mackenzie, J. (2019). Language, Gender and Parenthood Online : Negotiating Motherhood in Mumsnet Talk, Routledge Focus on Language and Social Media. Abingdon: Routledge.

It doesn't matter whether or not Mackenzie is supportive of MN or not. She recognises some of the very basic issues in her acknowledgements where she writes:
'Special thanks go to the Mumsnet users who allowed me to reproduce their posts, originally written with quite a different audience in mind, in the Mumsnet study. Thanks particularly to BertieBotts and freespirit, whose generous engagement with my research cannot be underestimated in the development of my approach to internet research ethics. I would also like to thank Mumsnet for giving permission to use these posts, as well as the Mumsnet logo.'

Eden has cited this paper, it isn't as if she can't be aware.

We do sometimes resort to talking in gifs.

Biscuits have already been covered in one of those terrible online media articles such as the one the OP uses in her work from Vice. They are all exactly the same so I can't remember which. They were darkly described as "coded emojis".

There was me thinking it was our wizardry super powers of telepathy and mind bending skills.

I still want a small green beaker icon to represent "yes, it is just you".

I mean all emojis are coded..

But Im guessing they dont mean from a developer perspective 🤣

Perhaps she's aiming for balance - one researcher gets the ethics right, another demonstrates how to mess them up?