The motivation of the opening messages is to stimulate discussion, to hear opinions and arguments. The title of the three examined threads is formulated in the form of a question. Together, the title speaks to the supposed target group ( Dog owners! ). In this case, the question is only presented in the message field ( Do you say “he” about the dog? ). In the opening message of all threads except for one, the author presents his own position after the title: referring to an animal with the pronoun he is said to be irritating or ear-splitting. Overall, it is more common in the material to oppose the use of the pronoun he for an animal.

However, the defenders of the use also actively participate in the discussion, despite the position expressed in Australian B2C Email List initial messages. One of the opening messages ( Why in Finland do we talk about the animal H, but the person Se? ) contains only a link to a news text in which pronouns have been used in an attention-grabbing way in the author’s opinion, and the author does not actually say that he is against such use.

Argument about speech and writing, animals and people Already in the opening messages, attention is drawn to the fact that they refer to the spoken language. One of the opening messages is titled Why in Finland do we talk about the animal He, but the human Se? , and the second conversation is started with the question Do you say “he” about the dog? Despite the verbs referring to oral expression, the conversations refer to standard language, which you would think is primarily a written form of language. Another observation that emerges immediately at the title level is that the concepts related to the two pronouns are intertwined.