A critical summary of Deborah Tannen’s “The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why

We communicate by asking questions, sharing ideas, showing emotions, physically and verbally. On a daily basis communication is very important. Especially if your job involves a lot of team work.

Deborah Tannen’s case study entitled “Can’t We Talk?” is the most relevant reading that I have ever done for any class. It relates to a problem that every person regardless of age, race or sex, will have to face many times in his or her lifetime. The problem is that men and women communicate differently and these differences can often lead to conflict. This case study is very informative because it helps to clarify the thought process of each sex. That said this reading leaves the reader somewhat unfulfilled because Tannen does not offer a solution to the problem.

People can communicate in many different ways, verbal (talking), Written (email, memo, posters), body language/gestures (the way they react when been given information), their facial expression, eye contact, sigh language and behavior. People communicate to one another on a day to day basis. People may communicate to each other for different reasons such as: Creating a relationship, keeping a stable relationship, 'chit chat', giving/receiving information or expressing ideas, thoughts or concerns.

Deborah Tannen, who is a professor of linguistics, says in her essay, "How Male And Female Students Use Language Differently", that after she made her book, “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation” that one of the unintended benefits was that she gets to reevaluate her teaching strategies and see how male and females act differently in class. As you read through her essay you can tell that Deborah Tannen wants her readers to think about why males tend to speak more in discussions than females and the reason for this difference in the classroom and also how we can improve the classroom for both men and women.Although Tannen tends to get off topic and doesn 't have much evidence to back up some of her claims, she states

Deborah Tannen’s essay “But What Do You Mean?” focuses on what she claims are differences between men and women when it comes to social interaction. The essay is sectioned into seven categories, in which she talks about how men and women tend to think and react when it comes to apologizing, criticizing, thanking, fighting, praising, complaining, and joking with others. In general, she seems to promote the idea that women tend to be more polite and refined, considering the feelings of others when conversing and taking everything as a formality. In contrast, men are apparently more blunt, taking a more direct approach with matters and being more unconcerned with how they may affect others. Women tend to automatically apologize and thank others

In order to communicate effectively, think about both verbal and non-verbal methods, formal and informal. Remember that communication

Communication is a process that involves the exchange of information, thoughts, ideas and emotions. There are many ways of communicating and this can be done verbally and nonverbally. We have many reasons of communicating with each other, and these are to express ourselves as well as to pass on information and knowledge. Effective communication involves verbal and nonverbal interaction.

There are many communication methods in order to meet someone’s communication needs some of this communication methods are:

There are many ways to communicate other than straight forward talking which many people find more productive than having a verbal conversation. These include: -

I communicate in a very practical, concise way. Give me the facts, make it simple and I will happily receive your communication. I once worked with an individual who did not appreciate facts or concise conversations. She preferred large, sweeping hand gestures, flowery stories and lengthy conversation to communicate a concept. She and I have very different communication styles. I quickly learned that if I used my concise techniques, she did not understand nor appreciate the conversation. If I wanted to effectively communicate with her, I had to adopt her style, tempo and verbosity. Once I adopted this method,

The Communication methods that I use are verbal and non-verbal as well as written. The methods that I use with each learner depend on their individual needs. It is important that in all my communication I am not ambiguous or biased and that I communicate in a professional manner. “Good Communicators succeed in choosing the best medium of communication for the particular purpose in mind.” (Times 100 Business Case Studies; Date Accessed 10th May 2015) Examples of my communication methods are listed below:

From "You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation", Deborah Tannen shows the gender differences in conversation. The main idea is that women value relationship and empathy within a group, while men are struggling to raise their status and class. According to Deborah Tannen, this affects how they think and speak. Generally, men talk more in a public situation, while women talk more in private settings. Most women tend to use rapport talk for conversation, "a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships," whereas most men tend to use report talk, "a way of preserving independence and maintain status in hierarchical social order"(Deborah Tannen, You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation) There are different understandings between gender about what conversation is for. To him, talk is information, which is used to inform what he needs to know or what he wants other to know. To her, however, talk is for interaction, a way to show involvement, whereas listening is a way of caring. Therefore, in public events, men are more comfortable to claim attention with this understanding of talking.

This causes women to become more vocal. Tannen suggests that status affects many different ways in which men communicate and raises several different examples. One area she found was that men tell more stories and jokes than women. She suggests that they are not doing this to be funny but instead do it to again to negotiate status. They often tell stories in which they are the heroes and act alone to overcome obstacles. While women use storytelling to gain support from her personal networks. They use their stories that, if they are the subject of, contain her doing something foolish to put her at the same level as the listener. In this way women are not concerned with status as with relating and gaining support. Men and women also differ when they are listening. While women tend to use eye contact and head nods to let the speaker know that she is listening. Men often do not use these techniques because they suggest agreement with the speaker. Women also a technique which Tannen calls cooperative overlap. This happens sometimes when women start to speak before the other person finishers speaking. They usually do this to agree and show support for what the speaker is saying. Women see cooperative overlap as a way to continue the conversation while men see it as a competitive ploy to gain control of that conversation. In this way communication again is not made clear, men are annoyed because they believe that

The article suggests women perform more confidently when working in groups composed of predominantly women. When women are the minority in a collaborative group, they do not typically perform as well. Consequently, men may work well in many types of gender group combinations due to their increased confidence in performance abilities.

Public communication is very important when in a discussion with coworkers and such. The one weakness that some people run into is silence. The spiral of silence theory by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann explains why certain people fall under the pressure and seclude to silence. Silence may not always be a bad thing, but according to a study by Lucy J. MacGregor, the fact is that silence during a speech or conversation is absolutely bad. With this, silence while talking to a large group negatively affects the listeners in a way in which some words in the speech will not be remembered. The point is that silence tends to destroy people’s speeches. Words are forgotten in the speech; Loss of the attention by the listeners happens and the