Deborah Tannen Language

In 1991, a linguist teacher by the name of Deborah Tannen published "Conversational Styles "in the Chronicle of Higher Education,a weekly newspaper for college professors ."Conversational Style"is the way we converse with one another.Tannen felt as if "small-group interaction should be a part of any class ",but rather than state facts to support her argument she relied on her expertise in public speaking& her own personal experiences to strengthen her point of view.Tannen felt that men accounted for an higher percentage than woman when participating in class discussion, because men are more comfortable speaking in a public setting than woman.Tannen stated"That men are more likely to be comfortable with the debate-like form"that commonly takes

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

It is no secret that, in general, boys and girls differ in their learning styles. Capitalizing on these differences could advance classroom performance. With on-going concerns about student success in school, any changes in the classroom that could increase student achievement should be considered. Recognizing the learning differences between boys and girls, one of the changes that could be instituted is single-gender classrooms.

While I agree with Tannen that the more dominant voices in the class may intimidate the more quiet voices, I don’t necessarily think that it’s strictly directed towards females. I believe that the more aggressive voices come from the most comfortable and confident students. In high school most of the comfortable voices were male, which is why they spoke up first. Although males could also stray away from speaking at times, it affected females more on average. When the author presented this argument my eyes were opened to something that I was a part of and could relate to, strictly in high school. Others may have different experiences but Tannen nailed it perfectly for me.

When you send your children off in the morning to go to school, no matter what grade they are in whither it be elementary, junior high, or senior high, you expect that they will receive the best education that they can get. They should be asked challenging questions, encouraged and called upon to participate in class, they should also be given as much help as they need to secede by the teacher. However, this is most commonly not the case. Parents and the children themselves are unaware of what is going on because gender bias is not a noisy problem. Most people are unaware of the secret sexist lessons that occur every day in classrooms across the country. In this essay I will use two essay's from the reader:

In "Sex, Lies and Conversation" Deborah Tannen, linguistics professor at Georgetown University, explains the discrepancies between female and male mechanics of conversation: females tend to converse while facing one another and respond with supportive remarks; males tend to converse while looking away from one another and respond with dismissive remarks. According to Tannen, such discrepancies arose from childhood development and socialization. Because females developed bonds through conversation from a young age, they often express their feelings and thoughts with others. Males, however, developed bonds less dependent of socialization, but rather through the participation of various activities as children. Therefore, females developed the

Schlosser. She carried out the study while on a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and will study the effects of gender in higher education lecture halls next. This is one of few studies of its kind to use scientific data to address the question of gender effects in school. Boys with more female peers in their classes show higher enrollment rates in both advanced math and science classes, but overall benefits were found in all grades for both sexes. Prof. Schlosser found that primary-school classrooms with a female majority showed increased academic success for both boys and girls, along with a notable improvement in subjects like science and math. In the middle schools, girls were found to have better academic achievement in English, languages and math. And in high school, the classrooms which had the best academic achievements overall were consistently those that had a higher proportion of girls enrolled. A higher percentage of girls lowers the amount of classroom disruption and fosters a better relationship between pupils and their teacher, a study of the data suggests. Teachers are less tired in classrooms with more girls, and pupils overall seem to be more satisfied when a high female-to-male ratio persists. Prof. Schlosser was inspired to the study by a “renewed interest on the effects of classroom gender composition on students’ learning, since a new amendment to America’s Title IX

That’s where I become reluctant to recommend Deborah Tannen’s teaching strategy. Looking back on my public education experience I can think of a lot more exceptions to this description of how boys and girls use language differently than agreements. Again, I’m relying on personal experiences and I can of course also recall instances where men have dominated a classroom discussion. However, for me to say that all boys dominated girls during classroom discussions in Phoenix, AZ during the last stretch of the 20th century or that all girls are reluctant to speak publicly outside of the comfort of their peer group in Honolulu, HI during the beginning of the 21st century would be disingenuous and could probably be attributed to an expectancy bias.

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.

“It is early indeed that children show an awareness of the message that… females are generally less interesting and important than males are… The (often inadvertent) bearers of this message include parents, peers, and teachers.” (Lips, 1979, p. 128.) The absence of gender equity can be damaging to both males and females. Surprisingly most of the teachers and administrators are unaware of this problem. Organizations such as the American Association of University Women (“Gender equity,” 2003.) strive to create programs that will improve equality within schools. The purpose of this research paper is to identify gender equity issues in the classroom and explore strategies for teachers to incorporate equitable

Did you know that single-sex classrooms are the worst classes ever? Over the past decade, single-gender classrooms have been opened in at least 230 schools in the rural, suburban, and the urban areas. Single-gender classrooms are classrooms where either young girls’ are in one class together, or young boys are in another class together. Single-sex classrooms were created because studies showed that boys and girls learn differently and they could benefit from being in a classroom with peers to whom they can relate. Since 2008, single-gender education has been the key to improved educational performance among boys and girls throughout the years. Today, gender differences among girls and boys are steadily rising in the classrooms they are in,

Through her use of the rhetorical devices of personal experience, ethos, and comparison, venerated Georgetown linguistics professor Deborah Tannen persuaded me to concede with her argument that males and females communicate differently in the classroom, as indicated in her 1991 article How Male and Female Students Use Language Differently. In this composition, she emphasizes that because of intersexual differences in utilizing the spoken word in class differently, instructors, including herself, consider reevaluating their teaching strategies. In her case, revising the approach involved building experience through closely monitoring her classes and collaborating with colleagues.

In fact, most women are loud and opinionated in public, without care of offending anyone. In addition, the stereotype that women and men most frequently interact with peers of the same sex is inaccurate. In today’s society, girls in high school and college have several best friends who are guys. Therefore, revealing the false categorized groups of men and women’s social life.

On the other hand, women are silent, but deadly. Women are more silent compared to men because they do not enjoy the spotlight; they prefer a small private like class to express themselves. They are as smart as men but certain ethics and social standards don’t let them reach that potential they would like to reach. Tannen mentions “women are more comfortable speaking in private to a small group of people they know well”(par 13. 371) Prinz also mentions “Accordingly, women were often educated in separate schools, and they were discouraged or prevented from pursuing graduate degrees”(par 5. 628). Meaning, women were use to being in groups that they were familiar with, not allowing to speak freely due to negative consequences. Women have been