ABSTRACT
It is a sociolinguistic axiom that language not only conveys the literal meaning through what we say but also nonliteral meanings through how we say it. The manner of speaking communicates all kinds of meanings pertaining to social roles and other kinds of identities.
For example, using honorifics would convey the nature of the social relationship between and among people engaging in communication because it marks social hierarchy and distance. To put it another way, use of honorifics marks social categories and roles that characterize a particular linguistic interaction. How we speak communicates just as richly as does what we communicate in terms of the content of speech. Gender is a particularly marked social category that language communicates and signals.
The Japanese language is an apt case. This chapter will provide an overview of the sociolinguistic literature on the relationship between language and gender and introduce the reader to the range of relevant empirical studies and theoretical perspectives. It will chronologically follow the historical development of the field as it introduces the multiple perspectives and debates among them, as well as the empirical sociolinguistic findings of gender difference in Japanese language.
