Spontaneous vs. Self–monitored? Language Variation in Malala’s Blog and Memoir

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani female education activist and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner. This paper discusses language variation in two texts written by Malala, namely a blog (“Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl”, 2009), and a memoir (I am Malala, 2013) co-authored with the British journalist Christina Lamb. We assume that these two texts can be analysed with reference to some generic characteristics, namely, 1) spontaneity, interactivity, low self-monitoring in the blog and 2) planning, high control and self-monitoring in the memoir. These textual characteristics can be loosely associated to genres typical of speech and writing, respectively, hence a selective comparison of passages taken from the two texts will test these assumptions. A quantitative and qualitative analysis will be presented to this end. In the concluding remarks, the findings of this study will be discussed.