ABSTRACT
There are two major disciplines whose work touches on gender differences in language. These two disciplines – Anthropology and Dialectology – have aims and objectives which are quite distinct from those of sociolinguistics, but there are areas of overlap. Anthropologists have observed language as part of their observation of the whole spectrum of social behaviour in a given community. Dialectologists have analysed the speech of rural communities in order to investigate linguistic change and the decline of rural dialects. Both anthropologists and dialectologists have commented upon gender differences in language; it is these comments which form the basis of this chapter.
