ABSTRACT
In this chapter I shall look at gender differences in language revealed by quantitative sociolinguistic studies. The chapter begins with a brief description of classic sociolinguistic work, with its analysis of linguistic variation in relation to social class of speaker and speech style (formal or informal). The central section will examine in some detail five examples of sociolinguistic work which reveal significant gender differences. The chapter ends with a discussion of the reasons underlying this kind of sociolinguistic variation.
