Studies in language and gender are barely known in Jordan and the Arab-Islamic world at large. This paper highlights the empowering use that Irbid females make of the languages available to theme. The .importance of this use is enhanced by the fact that Jordanian is a multilingual country where languages do not have the same social and political status and where the choice and use of a language is part and parcel of negotiating the power related to gender-making and gender-creating in Jordanian society. Mono- or bilingual women use oral genres to help themselves and literate (often multilingual) women use code-switching for the same goal.
Keywords: Code Switching, L1, Sociolinguistics
