Real Talk Tannen Analysis

In the first excerpt Deborah Tannen wrote “But What Do You Mean?”, she breaks down and classifies the conversational areas where men and women have the most difficulties communication. Tannen’s excerpt is written from a personal point of view, it is written within her daily workplace and based off actions or events she encounters between men and women. Tannen argues that men tend to be more confrontational when communication and women happen to approach confrontation in a subtle way. Men are direct and to the point, while women try to negotiate. In the excerpt Tannen breaks her argument into 7 sperate

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.

The book excerpt Conversation Style: Talking on the job by Deborah Tannen discusses about different styles of communication between the genders. Tannen outlines about differences in conversation styles used by men and women at their workplaces and daily lifestyles. She claims that most of the time problems and tensions between men and women arise because of differences in conversational styles of each gender. The book focuses on research in gender communication in the working world perspective. I agree with Tannen’s claim about gender differences in conversation styles and how it affects relationships, workplace issues and daily life.

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

Deborah Tannen is an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Her research mainly focuses on the expression of interpersonal relationships in conversational interactions, including how these interactions are affected by gender and cultural differences. In her essay Tannen uses gender to reveal the differences between male and female conversational styles in classroom discussions. She formulates the theory that males naturally prefer and dominate contributions to these debate-like discussions while females incline to contribute to less hostile conversations. Tannen presents her argument effectively using simple vocabulary and appropriate literary devices however, as the essay progresses she

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

Men and women view things very differently, and they socialize differently. It is often hard to straighten out misunderstandings because each one feels that his or her logic is the correct logic. “adult men and women struggling to communicate often sound like children.” (Tannen 441) The author convinces us of her argument by using scenerios between men and women.

The environment of a seminar-based college classroom has a lot to do with student’s personal

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

“Sex, Lies, and Conversation,” by Deborah Tannen, very clearly outlined many of the problems in communication between genders. Men and women are raised differently and understand the world in different, yet similar, ways. Reading this article gave me great pleasure in that it verified what I’ve observed in the world. Men and women do not communicate the same. Physically, men and women converse in different ways such as men appearing to be distracted vocally and attention-wise, while women stick to one topic in great detail while holding eye-contact (Tannen, 1990). This distracted appearance makes women assume men aren’t paying attention, but the “‘participatory listenership’ is often perceived by men as interruption, intrusion and lack of attention,”

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

There exists a disparity in the communication phenomenon between men and women. This disparity according to scholars can be attributed to the male dominance in the society today and relationship tensions between couples. A study on cross-sex conversations showed that, when men and women engage in a friendly conversation, they do so as equals but they do not play the same roles in the communication. Women tend to ask more questions and likely to utter utterances that encourage responses from the other speaker. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to interrupt their partner’s conversations and make direct opinions and facts to control or dominate the conversation. Thus, the communication phenomenon between men and women is strikingly distinct.

This research paper focuses on the gender differences at work and their communication styles. It discusses the manner in which men and women take in communicating to others. It is viewed that men are no longer the power house of communication. Research will indicates that in group settings, not one gender type dominates the conversation, but the one who shows leadership is determined to have power. In addition, studies indicate that men are less intuitive than women because women express nonverbal communication with great sensitivity.

She studied ethnic groups, which speak the same language using different styles, and found that the effect of gender on communication is miniscule compared to the effect of culture and socialization. In her research, Tannen asserts that the basic uses of conversation by women are to establish and support intimacy; while for men it is to acquire status. These styles and motives for communicating represent different cultural upbringings, and one is not necessarily better than the other. However, she also notes in her findings that men tend to interrupt more and ask questions less. In fact, the female tendency to ask more questions sometimes results in receiving lower grades from male professors who view frequent questioning as proof that a student knows less than her male counter parts.