Words on Screens: Women’s Names in Mobile Phone Contact Lists in Jordan

This study investigates how male Jordanians store the names of their female relatives in mobile phones contact lists. The source of the data is a small-scale survey of 90 male Jordanians from three equal age cohorts: young (18-35), middle-aged (36-49) and old (+50). The participants’ responses were coded in an excel sheet in which each token was coded for either [r] (real name) or [p] (pseudonym). Using Rbrul for quantitative analysis, the data were analysed within the framework of variationist sociolinguistics. The results show that male Jordanian city dwellers store the real names of their female relatives in mobile phone contact lists more than the village dwellers. With regard to age as a social factor, the findings demonstrate that the young and old groups are less sensitive about using the real names of their female relatives than the middle-aged group. The results were interpreted with reference to the changing roles of women in Jordan and social pressure