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You Just Don T Understand Deborah Tannen Analysis

Decent Essays

This article written by Deborah Tannen catches the reader’s eyes by trying to explain how the argumentative culture leads us to see the world. She believes the best way to approach this is to look at spokespeople on television and how they make things seem like they are so horrible and provide us with views of both sides. They believe that the best way to settle and argument is to write an essay and try to criticize is by stating your thoughts about it. She states how in today’s society people are only concerned about winning or loosing when they start and argument. When she wrote her first book You Just Don’t Understand, she was interviewed several times and producers wanted to make this like a drama show by starting a fight on television. She noticed that after a while people started to criticize her work and she realized that people just want to start and argument with someone. She explains that we can never settle something between our family and friends if we argue about it. We will not try to understand one another, but we will look for anything just to win the argument rather than try and come to a solution. She also explains that society believes there are two sides to each story and the one who has a better argument against the other side will be the one who wins. …show more content…

Language can cause harm to an individual without even meaning to if you say something that does not relate to that individual. We shape our thoughts and perceptions with language because it helps us criticize people by what they say and how they do things. She mentions a study that asked people if the car that was “smashed” or the car that was “bumped” was going faster. People answered that the car that was “smashed” was going faster. This gives us an idea that this has more power since people perceive it in a different way than a car being

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