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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 men and women. Tannen observed that, "For males, conversation is the way you negotiate your status in the group and keep people from pushing you around; you use talk to preserve your independence. Females, on the other hand, use conversation to negotiate closeness and intimacy; talk is the essence of intimacy, so being best friends means sitting and talking. For boys, activities, doing things together, are central. Just sitting and talking is not an essential part of friendship. They're friends with the boys they do things with" (Tannen 95). Tannen observed that communication begins with children. While a child grows they learn to speak from their parents and peers. Boy and girls may grow up within the same household but learn to communicate differently with each other. In groups children often play with the same sex: i.e. girls with girls, boys with boys. Although Tannen did a study on communication between men and women, she started with the interactions and communication of children. Her study concludes boys tend to play outside within large groups usually playing: sports, army, or cops and robbers. One boy in the group tends to take control, over the rest of the members, making him the leader. Meanwhile, girls play in smaller groups or pairs playing: house or dolls. This type of playing gives girls equality to ensure they will make a best friend. Tannen points out boys style of communication is more competitive arguing over who is the winner opposed to who is the loser, while the girls are less competitive by trying to make suggestions and compromise with others.
Deborah Tannen wrote “ Talk in the Intimate Relationship” to help people learn something about how men and women's interactions differ. She is a language scholar and has past experience of failed relationships and she feels as though this was because of lack of communication. Her main focus is on metamessages, these are messages that go beyond what we say. She states that the people that are literal minded, miss out on the context of what communication is. What this essay will consist of being what Tannen calls metamessages, summarizing her article on how men and woman talk, deciding whether Tannen is favorable to both genders and last but not least if I agree to an extent with Tannen says in her article.
According to Tannen, differences in childhood can impact individual’s communication with each other in relationships. At a young age, children tend to play with other children who are the same gender as them. Both groups of genders have different ways of building a friendship. Tannen says that “Little girls create and maintain friendships by exchanging secrets” (276). It is important for girls to share secrets to get closer to one another and to have a mutual understanding unlike boys whose bonds are “based
Steven Pinker distinguishes the difference between talking to man and women. Pinker showed a lady that was comfortable talking to another lady and the lady became angry when her talking to a man, not women (Pinker 2007 .p112, 113). People used intricacies method to achieve their needs and emotion instead of saying what they need to say directly. (Pinker 2007 .p113) Furthermore, even in a sexual situation, people twist and turn around and turn around their words. For example, “would you like to come up and see my etching?” (Pinker 2007.p113) Moreover, people use a kind word to order something from someone else without making a demand to the receiver or using indirect speeches to avoid a problem that may happen by mistake. (Pinker, 2007
In the introduction of Deborah Tannen’s “Conversation Style: Talking on the Job”, she compares and contrasts the ways men and women communicate. This reminds me of what I tell people that are struggling in their relationships. Women and men express themselves differently. Women think, but men act. If you can’t wrap your head around this, being in a relationship with anyone is going to be hard. Yet, this is such a basic way of looking at this issue. Not only are the genders vastly different, but each person relates to the world around them in a certain way. He or she also needs to be related to in a specific way. Looking at personalities and personal histories can give a better look at the way we communicate with each other. Tannen examines
I am sure we all know what communication, females, males, and language are all about. Separate, they are all simple terms that we all have grown to understand. But what happens when we combine all of these together? Communication between both male and female is possible, but at times it goes in the wrong direction. I have read three different texts in this collection:
The differences between the two children and the choices they made regarding their play were fairly obvious. Though a number of factors would likely influence the way that children chose to play, the main difference that could be inferred from the two children without looking into their backgrounds, was their sex. Choosing to compare gender is something that seemed to come naturally after referring to the observation as well as from personal preferences and interests. The idea of sex and gender differences is one of importance and the reasoning behind it provided an insight to the way our society supports girls and boys in different manners. A number of differences can be taken when comparing how girls and boys play including the role models they choose to copy, either a male or female, how physical the play is and the other classmates that children choose to play with.
In her essay titled “It Begins at the Beginning”, professor of linguistics Deborah Tannen describes how girls’ and boys’ communication and language patterns differ from an early age. Tannen’s essay, which is adapted from her book titled You Just Don’t Understand, she states that in the world of communication boys and girls have vast differences, which makes itself apparent in the way that they play. The author backs this up with two explanations. First, is that people not only talk to boys and girls differently, but also accept different ways of talking from them. Second, children learn communication not only from their parents but also from their peers, and there are major differences in the way boys and girls play together and speak to each other.
Do men and women effectively communicate in the same way, or is it just a conversation of misunderstanding? There is constantly a new interest in whether men and women converse successfully. Professor and journalist, Deborah Tannen writes, “Sex, Lies, and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?” Tannen compares and contrasts all conversational styles, and explains how the expectation of dialogue affects how men and women converse. Tannen focuses on the subject of marriage and the imbalance of interest between male and female couples. The contrasting perspective however comes from, Deborah Cameron, author of, “What Language Barrier”. Cameron conveys that the stereotypes left upon male and female communication
Maltz, Daniel N., and Ruth A. Borker. "A Cultural Approach To Male-Female Miscommunication." In Language and Social Identity. Edited by John J. Gumperz. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982, pp. 196-216.
Discussion of Significant Differences Between Men's and Women's Talking Manners Beginning with the role of compliments in female-male interaction by Janet Holmes in Reading B of Chapter 1 of your textbook Using English: from conversation to canon, discuss the significant differences between men’s and women’s talk – the way they interact, their choice of words and phrases and the topics they like to discuss. The linguist Halliday (1978) suggests that language has a dual function; it communicates ideational meaning, in terms of the information and ideas expressed, and it also communicates interpersonal meaning, expressing the degree of friendliness, or status difference between speakers. Since women and men occupy different subcultures, and subcultures are also differentiated according to how language is used, it is reasonable to say that the genders would exhibit distinctive language patterns. ( Maybin, Mercer, p5 ) Beginning with the work of Lakoff (1975), which documented that women and men communicate on the basis of languages which are differentiated according to gender. She suggests that women use more tag questions (eg.
Though both genders seem to spend the same amount playing, boys and girls differ in several aspects of play. Girls tend to engage in more socio-dramatic play that includes higher levels of play sequence than boys. Girls also play in a more scripted way with toys. (Cherney & Dempsey, 2010; Cherney, Kelly-Vance, Glover, Ruane & Ryalls, 2003) Both play sequence and scripted play determine play complexity therefore the intricacy of play depends on the gender of the toy.
(2012) examined gender-typed play across social contexts in order to examine if the social context influences a child’s gender-typed activity choice. The varying social contexts they accounted for were if the child was playing with boys, girls, a mixture of the two, or the teacher (Goble et al., 2012). This is important to consider because the frequency at which each type of social context is present will potentially have an impact on the rate of various gender-typed activities (Goble et al., 2012). Research shows that children prefer to play with children of their same gender who engage in the roughly the same amount of gender-typed activities as they do (Martin et al., 2013). This pattern leads to children spending most of their time playing in groups that are sex-segregated (Martin et al., 2013). Due to this, there is the potential that children may engage more often in certain gender-typed activities than if they were playing with someone of the opposite gender (Goble et al. 2012). To determine if this statement is in fact true it is necessary to observe preschool age children and record the type of play they engage in, and who their playmates are; this is precisely what the present research represents and what Goble et al. (2012)
...a meaningful communication to take place. In conclusion, there are differences between men and women that go beyond social nurture. These differences have their origin in their genes. The differences evident in men and women are translated in their behavior and communication. There are possibilities of these differences in their turn raising the problem of failing to understand one another because in a communication men and women have a different set of expectations from each other. It is essential to understand and appreciate these differences for a meaningful communication to take place.
...or a relationship”. In genderlects, there is no superior or inferior method of communication, but rather, men and women just communicate differently. By understanding these differences, one can reduce the amount of misunderstandings in future conversations.
How does language affect our interaction with other genders? Language is the basis of all interaction. The language we use is essential to other’s perceptions of us. We instinctively know this, so we cater our language to suit how we want to be perceived by others. Language is not the only factor in perception though. Other’s interpretation of our language is as important an ingredient in their perception of us as the language we use is. Our perceptions of each other, more than anything else dictate our interactions with each other. The essential question is does interpretation of language vary between genders?