Recent research on the relationship between language and gender has been dominated by approaches that examine the ways in which gender is socially constructed in interaction, rather than existing as a fixed social category to which
individuals are assigned at birth (e.g. Crawford 1995, Hall & Bucholtz 1995,
Bergvall et al. 1996, Bucholtz et al. 1996). The concept of CofP is clearly much
more compatible with this kind of social-constructionist approach than are other
less dynamic or activity-focused concepts. Thus the CofP been welcomed in language and gender research as a corrective to unsatisfactory essentialist approaches to the analysis of gender.4
In Cameron’s words (1992:13), it encourages
a different focus: “not gender differences but the difference gender makes.” Eckert & McConnell-Ginet (1992:466) point out that, rather than emphasizing gender differences that result from differing patterns of early socialization, gender
researchers can more fruitfully focus on “people’s active engagement in the reproduction of or resistance to gender arrangements in their communities.” Instead of abstracting gender from social practice, they note the need to focus on
“gender in its full complexity: how gender is constructed in social practice, and
how this construction intertwines with that of other components of identity and
difference, and of language” (472). The concept of CofP, they suggest, offers a
fruitful way forward. In the present collection, Eckert & McConnell-Ginet pursue these points further, illustrating ways in which the concept has proved useful
in their own research. Similarly, Bergvall examines the broader implications of
the CofP for theory and methodology in language and gender research.