1. Historical perspectives: 1.1. Introduction: the gender debate; 1.2. The 'deficit' approach; 1.3. The variationist approach to gender study; 1.4. The 'dominance' approach; 1.5. The 'difference' approach; 1.6. The 'diversity' approach; 1.7. Gendered language: censorship or correction; 1.8. The 'performance' approach; 1.9. Recognising and celebrating diverse identities; 1.10. Conclusion; 2. Language and gender: 2.1. Introduction; 2.2. Defining gender: it's all in the name; 2.3. Male firstness: word order and generic terms; 2.4. Marking gender; 2.5. Patterns and metaphors; 2.6. Cleaning up language; 2.7. Conclusion; 3. Gender and representation: 3.1. Introduction; 3.2. Exploring gender and discourse; 3.3. Semiotics: Signs and gender; 3.4. Representing gender through metaphor; 3.5. Gender and power; 3.6. Gender and social actor representation; 3.7. Different discourses about gender; 3.8. Gender representation in the media: health magazines; 3.9. Gender and argumentation theory; 3.10. Gender representation in corpus data: talking and writing about sports people; 3.11. Conclusion; 4. Gender and identity: 4.1. Introduction; 4.2. Identity in discourse: socially constructed selves in private talk; 4.3. Exploring identity and masculinities; 4.4. Identity and constructing selves through phonological choices; 4.5. Occupational talk: conveying a gendered identity in the workplace; 4.6. Social constructing self: performing gender in public and written contexts; 4.7. Performing and constructing gender identity in a modern world; 4.8. Conclusion; 5. Exploring gender: applying research methods to data: 5.1. Introduction; 5.2. Creating your own research project; 5.3. Finding spoken data; 5.4. Analysing conversations and making transcripts; 5.5. Reading about language and gender; 5.6. Acknowledging your sources; 5.7. Practising decision-making; 5.8. Conclusion; Ideas and answers; References.