ABSTRACT
There are two abiding truths on which the general public and research scholars find themselves in uneasy agreement: First, men and women speak the same language. Second, men and women speak that language differently. So we have, at one and the same time, gender-linked (or as they are sometimes called, sex-linked) similarities anddifferences in language use. What this means for communication between and among men and women, and in fact whether it means anything at all, is the topic of this chapter.
