Gendered Patterns of Verbal Aggression in Nigerian Undergraduate WhatsApp Interactions

Résumé

Digital communication platforms have become central sites for social interaction among university 
students, where language is used not only to build relationships but also to negotiate power and 
identity. Verbal aggression is a recurrent feature of online discourse, yet limited attention has been 
paid to its gendered patterns in African digital contexts, particularly within Nigerian university 
settings. This study investigates gendered patterns of verbal aggression in Nigerian undergraduate 
WhatsApp interactions, examining how male and female students deploy aggressive language 
forms and the social meanings such practices convey. Drawing on Deborah Tannen (1990, 1994), 
it conceptualizes gendered interaction patterns and examines how masculinity and femininity are 
enacted in digital communication. CDA, following Norman Fairclough (1989, 1992), provides 
tools to interpret verbal aggression as socially meaningful discourse shaped by power relations, 
identity construction, and contextual norms rather than random impoliteness or emotional 
outbursts. The research addresses three questions: (i) what forms of verbal aggression occur in 
Nigerian undergraduate WhatsApp interactions? (ii) how do these forms vary across gender? and 
(iii) what social and digital contextual factors shape these gendered patterns? A qualitative
quantitative mixed-methods design was adopted. Data consisted of 60 WhatsApp chat excerpts 
from informal undergraduate group interactions across two Nigerian universities. Instances of 
verbal aggression were identified and categorized using discourse-pragmatic criteria, followed by 
frequency analysis and qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis, with attention to interactional 
context and message sequencing. Findings indicate clear gendered tendencies: male participants 
predominantly employed direct insults, threats, and confrontational language to assert dominance 
and control interactional space; female participants, while less frequent in overt aggression, 
favoured indirect strategies such as sarcasm, ridicule, and discursive shaming to express 
disapproval and negotiate social norms. These patterns are shaped by gender ideologies, 
sociocultural expectations, and the affordances of WhatsApp communication, including 
immediacy, multimodal features such as emojis, and reduced face-to-face accountability. The 
study concludes that verbal aggression in Nigerian undergraduate WhatsApp discourse is 
systematic, context-dependent, and socially meaningful, functioning as a resource for identity 
construction, power negotiation, and social regulation in multilingual African digital contexts.