Discussing The Playing Field Of Gender And Communication

In the video lecture presented by Deborah Tannen, He Said, She Said, Tannen emphasizes that men and women grow up in very different social worlds. When boys grow up, they learn that there is often going to be an inequality of force in any conversation. For girls, however, they feel that equality is very important and that it needs to be enforced through sympathy-based bonding. As adults, these different messages behind socialization can often lead to confusion, miscommunication, and, sometimes, hurt feelings. Tannen explores the difficulties of cross-gender communication and how we can overcome them by understanding where these conversational rituals come from. As a reflection on Tannen’s lecture, this paper will analyze how the different developments of boys and girls lead to the different views men and women have on the world. First of all, childhood and friendship is perceived differently by each gender.

In Tannen’s first section, status vs. support, Tannen states that women view talking as a way to receive support, whereas men are

The typical stereotypes of communication are that women talk more than men, that is not necessarily true. For example, Tannen states, “...another explanation is that men think women talk to much because they hear women talking in situations where men would not: on the telephone; or in social situations with friends, when they are not discussing topics that men find inherently interesting, or; like the couple at the women’s group, at home alone-in other words, in private speaking” (Cooper and MacDonald 11). Men and women have two different conversational styles, different ways of talking. They also have different ideas of what is important and what is not. For example, Tannen points out that the man thought it wasn’t important that his friend was getting married, but the woman had thought that it was important (Cooper and MacDonald 12).

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 her essay, "But What Do You Mean?" Deborah Tannen discusses how men and women 's conversation styles differ in how they communicate with one another. The problem is that men and women have different perspectives. Tannen explains that the "conversation rituals" among women are designed to be polite and sensitive to others, while the "conversation rituals" among men are designed to maintain superiority (328). Tannen explores seven ways in which men and women miscommunicate : apologies, criticism, thank-yous, fighting, praise, complaints, and jokes. Being no fault of either party, conversation strategies between men and women are just naturally different, these miscommunications can make conversation awkward and sometimes can be misunderstood.

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 Dave Barry’s article “We’ve Got the Dirt on Guy Brains” and the Deborah Tannen’s “Sex, Lies, and Conversation” , the authors discussed the difference between men and women in terms of specific issues. However, their opinions of what reasons have led to certain differences diverged. This essay aimed at providing a detailed examination of both articles by comparing some of the points. First of all, I will discuss the shared point of both articles regarding the differences of men and women. Then the I will move on taking about the major different opinions the two authors held. Once these have been done, a brief examination of the the evidence in both articles.

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.

Tannen (1994) suggests that the two sexes have very different modes of communication, and she suggests that in fact, communication between man and woman should be viewed as inter-cultural communication. She also has given set of differentiations: (1) Men live in a world of hierarchy; women live in a world of connection. (2) Men require individuality and freedom; women require intimacy and familiarity. (3) Men live in a world of action; women live in a world of feeling.(p,67) The issue Tannen tries to address is that sometimes women and men don’t understand each other because they come from different cultures. These findings on gender stereotypes offer a great help to them for understanding each other and thus enhance their relationship. Women

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.

In this essay, Tannen argues that men and women have different very different ways of communicating. Tannen states that the way we learn to communicate is developed at an early age. As children, we

Women generally do not interact with males as they do with other females due to the partial loss of shared understandings concerning the dialog and contact between individuals. For example, there are aspects of a woman’s personality and being that she may be comfortable sharing with other women because of the assumption that they can relate to her, but that she may not be comfortable sharing with men due to the uncertainty surrounding his reaction to or perception of her or the expectation of a negative reaction to her.

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

During spring and summer of 201 I underwent a six month internship in the information services department of a major company in my country Botswana. The company , Botswana power corporation is the sole producer and distributor of electricity in Botswana. As a company with branches all over the country it is easy to understand why communication would be crucial to the day to day operations of this company as a whole. For the sake of clarity however I’m going to limit the focus of this paper to the Information servives departmentin which I worked.