Talk is crucial to the way our identities are constructed, altered, and defended. Feminist scholars in particular have only begun to investigate how deeply language reflects and shapes who we think we are. This volume of previously unpublished essays, the first in the new Language and Gender Studies series, advances that effort by bringing together leading feminist scholars in the area of language and gender, including Deborah Tannen, Jennifer Coates, and Marcyliena Morgan, as well as rising younger scholars. Topics explored include African-American drag queens, gender and class on the shopping channel, and talk in the workplace.