ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the sex-difference approach by confronting its premises with those of the dominance approach. It focuses on conceptualization and methodology in sex-difference research and upon the implications for women in general of the research findings which are published and disseminated to a wider public. Early sociolinguistics, in the form of dialectology, broke with introspection, and sought out speakers of non-standard varieties. Sociolinguistics was directly affected by the new visibility of groups proclaiming their difference from the relatively unchallenged white, male, heterosexual, middle-class norm. The relevance for language and gender research is that in linguistics too, feminists are divided along similar lines to feminists in general. The fact that gender prescriptions are arbitrary is proved by anthropologists who note that what is considered masculine in one culture, would be appropriate for women in another.
