Gendered Communication By Deborah Tannen

Deborah Tannen and William Lutz both discuss the difficulty of communicating. Their point of views may be different, but their conclusion is the same. Men and women have difficulties of communicating. Not because the two genders want to be complicated but simply because we don’t realize how or what we’re doing when it’s happening.

The soil of the middle-east stained with the blood of our American soldiers just so we can not take advantage of our right to vote. Though sometimes questionable, America's overall image portrayed to other countries is an honorable one. America is known for its democracy and as well as being a land of opportunities and many freedoms. America's assortment of ethnicities and cultures is proof that our country is a desirable one. Wars are being fought at this very moment to defend these freedoms.

What does it mean to be an American? In my eyes to be an American means to have privileges, rights, and freedom. America isn't perfect, but it is one of the only countries that have rights given to people of different diversities and gender. America does not have tremendous poverty. Instead we have choices given to us by the people who fought and died for the American people. Without George Washington and the other patriots who planted the first seed in the ground and help plant the American nation we live in now who knows what America would be like now.

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

Do you consider yourself to be an American? Being an American is not just having a citizenship or living in America it is much more. America doesn’t just allow the people inside the country to stay, but America gives everyone a second chance at life and give them more opportunities. America has had a long strive for freedom and independence, making the opportunity of living here that much more special. In this essay I will be reading to you my thoughts of what it means to be an American. Bravery, honor, hope, and the freedom and equality of all Americans are the topics that I feel are most important.

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.

Defining what really is to be an American does not sound as easy as it seem. It will always be complex process. As immigration continues to fuel the growth of the population of our nation, racial and ethnic gap increase and evolve along with it. Racial and ethnic identities become more and more convoluted and difficult to understand. Race and ethnicity continue to intermingle and push a cultural shift in the US– a shift that plays a significant role in redefining America in a day-to-day basis.

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.

Many people dream about being an American. They dream because they envision America as the land of peace and prosperity. But is it? At times it has been, and at times its not. It is hard for the United States to be correct all the time because they have been unwilling designated as the “World Police”. Throughout history there have been examples politically, economically, and socially, where being an American is rewarding and times where it is embarrassing. To be an American means progress. We evolved from a world ruled by white men to a world of equal opportunity.

Throughout the life span of the United States, from its infancy after the Revolution to the present, people have asked, “What is an American?” This question goes far beyond asking who is a citizen or who resides in this land. No, it asks what the identity of an American is? Through popular, art, film, and literature, the American image is defined as being based on embracing our individual identities.

Is it true that immigrant’s native roots never leave them? Do cultures keep the best interest in mind for immigrants? I live in the great state of Texas where according to the US Census for 2016, Hispanics account for 37% of the population. My church in Buda, Texas has 3500 families and is about 70% Hispanic in membership, moreover; half of our family friends are Hispanic and most of these friends are living the US culture. Some of our employees though maintain Spanish as their primary language. Immigrants have an unbreaking bond entwined with native culture.

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.

Due to the different ways of expressing politeness and conversational involvement, they may have trouble communicating even if they share the same language. The ‘two cultures' approach proposes that talk between women and men is fraught with potential misunderstanding for much the same reasons that communication across the ethnic groups is (Mary Crawford, Talking Difference On Gender and Language, 1995). Hence, I agree with the point of view of Deborah Tannen. However, "You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation" does not inform readers about the reasons and the consequences of the communication differences between genders. Therefore, this essay will include the above

In order to be able to solve some of the problems associated with gender miscommunications, we should distinguish first between the two different types of communications: verbal communication and nonverbal communication. Verbal communication consists of messages expressed by linguistic means such as the use of intonation, the specific words we choose to say, and the way we are saying them. There are differences in females and males usage of language/verbal communication. As we might expect from traditional sex-role stereotypes, girls tend to establish more egalitarian same-sex groups. Girls use friendly groups as a training ground for cooperation. Boys view friendly conversation among their friends as training for verbal aggression. Females are more verbal, use three times more amount of words than males, they are much more descriptive and use more adjectives. Women are less direct in their communication style. As Prof. Tannen showed in one of her research, women are more indirect in answering questions depends on the situation. They answer questions the way they would like to be answered by men, which means more than just a yes/no answer. However, men answer the way they would like to be answered

Deborah Tannen is the author of the book You Just Don't Understand where she analyzes the different meanings of communication between men and women. Her research shows that women and men use the same words and phrases and yet can interpret and react to those same words and phrases differently. Tannen compares the two sexes to find men use their conversation as a type of competition or to preserve their independence. For example, men talk about their knowledge regarding sports, cars, women, exc. Meanwhile, women try to foster intimacy through communication. For instance, women often talk and relate on a personal level. Throughout Tannen's book she uses "cross-cultural communication" to describe the differences between the language of