 In this module, you will know that how gender practices are related with small social groups, which we are calling communities of practice. Much research has been done on relation between language and gender, but all this research was detached from practice. In other words, all the research is based on generalizations, general statements, abstract ideas and concepts and categories, and through that we want to study the relationship between language and gender. It is in practice that we see gender in interaction with other social categories like race, age, class, ethnic group, the linguistic, I mean group, whether we are Punjabi, Bhruchi etc. and profession and politics and ideology and power relationship because we are involved in certain social relations and in relations power may be involved. Someone is higher than the other, there is hierarchy. Now, when we relate gender with all these factors, this would make us understand gender being performed. Gender in a physical form. If we want to understand the relationship between language and gender and gender itself, we should study it relating with social practices. To fill this gap, we need to change our way of study, way of studying this relationship between language and gender. Number one, we have to link abstract ideas with social practices that we said in the beginning. And second question is, which practices of different social groups are communities of practice? Second part of the question is, practices of different social groups and these social groups are called communities of practice. And second change that we have to make in our way of research or studying relationship between language and gender would be to understand gender as complex of different social categories. We can't study it in isolation. We can study it when we see gender involving race, politics, religion and all these factors. If we want to do this, definitely we have to involve other disciplines besides linguistics. We can't understand this complex relationship between language and gender only on the basis of linguistic theories and linguistic ideas and linguistic methodology. We have to adopt interdisciplinary approach to study this relationship. So, we conclude that we have to think practically and look locally. What do we mean by it? We'll have to adopt a practice oriented approach. Think practically. We have to put our research in some context where people are involved in doing gender, in performing gender, where we can see gender in physical form. It means we can't study gender only theoretically. This is what we mean by think practically. Meaning of male and female varies across local communities. Local communities, social groups are communities of practice. They are the same terms. Now, from community of practice to community of practice, the concept of being male and female are different. So, we have to do research locally in local perspective. Relations between language, use and gender also varies from one local community to another local community. So, this is what we mean by look locally.