The Language of Fatherhood 2.0

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 8 examines the online construction of fatherhood. As such, this work dovetails with an emergent research agenda which is broadly concerned with the intersection of fatherhood and digital technologies, especially social media spaces. The chapter has three aims. The first is to sketch out some of the background literature on fatherhood and masculinities. The second is to discuss existing work in language and gender studies which focuses on parenting, tracing the main concerns of this research as they relate to motherhood and fatherhood. Building on the caring masculinities approach, the chapter then presents an analysis of data collected from a fatherhood forum. This analysis is one of the first attempts to unite a critical analysis of fatherhood and masculinities with close attention to the linguistic practice deployed by fathers in online spaces.