But What Do You Mean By Deborah Tannen Summary

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.

Men and women communicate in very different ways. Men want to see the solution, they want to just get straight to the point and then be done with the situation. Women on the other hand tend to be more detail-oriented before they get to

The relationship that I see between what Treasure discusses and what Tannen is warning us about has to do with listening and how it affects us in our daily lives. In the article that Deborah Tannen wrote titled “The Argument Culture Moving from Debate to Dialogue,” stated that she believes that opposition is the best way to get anything done. That an argument is the only way to get your point a crossed to someone. Tannen stated that she believes the best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate. That instead of listening to some else, it is just better to set up a debate instead. Tannen also stated that she believes the best way to show that you are really paying attention to them is to criticize them. That instead of listening to them,

To define these communication conundrums, Tannen discusses “rapport-talk” and “report-talk”. She defines “rapport-talk” as “For most women, the language of conversation is primarily

In Deborah Tannen’s article “There is No Unmarked Woman” she focuses on how women are being misconceived and prejudged on solely the way they’re dressed. The main point in the article is that there is no such thing as an unmarked woman – men have the option and women simply do not. To be “marked” in the way Tannen states it is changing the meaning of a word by simply adding a participle, but that participle has no meaning on its own. Deborah Tannen points out that even in the English language marked is a staple of linguistic theory. By simply adding a linguistic participle to a word that already has no meaning by itself can change the meaning of a word. As Tannen states in her article that women must make a decision on how they wish to appear on a day-to-day basis through their makeup, hair style, shoes, clothes, etc. When women are choosing how to appear everyday they’re trying to escape the preconceptions that men never really have to face due to more narrow decisions. Tannen makes a good statement when she refers to the research of Ralph Fasold in which men are actually marked. “Fasold points out that girls are born with fully female bodies, while boys are born with modified female bodies.” Tannen writes. In conclusion Tannen says how she’s upset the

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

The articles “Sex, Lies and Conversation: Why is it Hard for Men and Women to Talk to each other” by Deborah Tannen and “Speaking Different Languages” by John Gray are about how men and women often misunderstand each other which causes conflicts and or arguments. When a woman says something it usually has a deeper meaning, but men are usually more direct when speaking; this leads to conflicts and relationship problems. According to Tannen and Gray, men and women can adjust their thinking to minimize misunderstanding by translating each other’s dialect, by understanding their different ways of listening, and different body languages.

To begin, Tannen’s article shows a primarily positive tone. She maintains a casual tone as she compares the dissimilarities between men and women’s communicative interactions. To further exemplify, Tannen first gives an example of either a male or a female encounter and then contrasts it with comparative words such as “but” or “while.” She uses language to divide but not exalt one language preference in greater esteem than the other. In her passage regarding apologizing,

In the essay, “But What Do You Mean?” author and linguistic expert Deborah Tannen argues her feelings on how men and women vary in their use of conversational “rituals.” She states that males have a tendency to use wording to sustain dominance in conversation; however, women seem to take in to account the feelings of others. Tannen identifies seven categories in which men and women differ in communication. First, women use apologies to assure other people. Men can misapprehend these apologies as taking blame rather than as the ritual reassurance that women mean for it to be perceived. This supports what Tannen says in her essay, “But there are times when ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t self-deprecating or even an apology” (Tannen 380). Second, men are more straight-forward when criticizing more than women; women “soften” their criticism with the purpose of sparing the feelings of the person they are criticizing. Third, women often say “thank you” ritualistically, most of the time to equate the two in the conversation. Fourth, men enjoy “verbally sparring” more than women. Because of this difference, women are under the impression that they are usually condemned in a conversation. Fifth, women and men use praise differently. Women tend to expect praise open-heartedly when they are praised. Men, on the other hand, often confuse that not criticizing is praise enough. Sixth, women converse their complications in order to share their experiences; they complain not to solve their

In the essay Sex, Lies, and Conversation Deborah Tannen focuses on the differences and lack of communication between men and women though observations. She came to the conclusion that men were not lacking in their listening, but they were however listening in a different way than the women did. On the other hand, men aren’t the only people that have terrible communication skills. In many ways, these differences between the two genders can cause major conflict when not understood by the opposite side. A few examples of lack of communication may be when women don’t decide where they would like to eat, men who walk away from an argument rather than talking it out, and their decision making processes.

Conversation is a ritual every person must encounter throughout their lives in order to function properly with one another in today’s society. However, every individual has a “different idea about what’s appropriate” when approaching someone in any sort of conversation; that is why we are referred to as individuals (Tannen 327). There are thousands of diverse languages to speak to one another with, in fact that means there are thousands of different ways to offend each other with our words. Within those languages there are several contrasting gestures that can offend any single person, such as the amount of times individuals apologize in one meeting, giving criticism too harshly, or thanking someone so often it does not seem genuine. In the article “What Do You Mean,” Deborah Tannen touches upon apologies, criticism, and thank yous in further detail to explain where individuals go wrong within conversation and how they can fix their actions. Individuals find it satisfying to please others by being polite because it is the ‘right’ thing to do, however like myself others need to stand up for themselves and get directly to the point now in order to avoid conflict later in life.

Male and female differ in their use of communication because their reasons for communicating are different. Men

Communication between males and females has always been somewhat complicated. Because we are arguing that males and females have different cultures we wanted to take a look at what some of these differences might be. According to our research the inherent differences between male and female culture are the different roles that society holds for them and the ways these roles lead to different communication styles. The stereotypes that men and women grow up with affect the types of ways in which they communicate. We first wanted to take a look at how they specifically differ while men and women are arguing or having normal conversations. We also looked at the different types of networks that men and women

What we say is important in our society, when we speak we understand each other’s. Freedom of speech as Laura Kusisto say is that “we don’t have to approve of what the douchebags say – way just have to let them say it.” It’s very realistic what she says. If we don’t let someone say what he wants we will not guide him to the reasons of why things are happening. Speaking is like a door to a Person minds, when a person talks he open the door to his inner thoughts and his goals, just like when a student speak with his teacher when he has a problem the more the student explain his problem the better that student will become because of the right answer his teacher will give. “Speak so I can see you.” Very famous saying by Socrates and by this

In the article “Talk in the Intimate Relationship: His and Hers” by Deborah Tannen, you will begin to see and discover the differences in conversation between men and women. Discussed throughout this paper are the importance of metamessages, an overview of Tannen’s article, whether Tannen is fair in her article toward both men and women and whether I agree with Tannen’s article as well as experiences of my peer’s and myself.