Deborah Tannen
Deborah Tannen
Deborah Frances Tannenis an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
Date of Birth7 June 1945
CountryUnited States of America
adjust attitude convey dismiss fact ignores information involved major monitor people reasonable seem setting small social talk talking toward worthless
Many of us dismiss talk that does not convey important information as worthless - meaningless small talk if it's a social setting or "empty rhetoric" if it's public. Such admonitions as "Skip the small talk, " "Get to the point," or "Why don't you say what you mean?" may seem to be reasonable. But they are reasonable only if information is all that counts. This attitude toward talk ignores the fact that people are emotionally involved with each other and that talking is the major way be establish, maintain, monitor and adjust our relationships.
advice bugs cannot daughters mothers obvious powerful reason
Part of the reason (motherly advice) bugs us as daughters is because our mothers are so powerful in our lives. They loom like giants. The reason mothers keep at it is because they're so powerless. They cannot get you to do what is so obvious to them you should do.
obvious relationship talk women
It was just so obvious that everyone wanted to talk about the mother-daughter relationship. I think it's because women really are struggling, because it's a very important relationship in your life.
agree listening parts states talk united
If you come from, say, the northeastern part of the United States when you're listening you need to show you're alive. You need to talk along. That's the way you show you're interested. But in many parts of the United States if you talk along, that's rude, that's interruption. Now, we all agree interruption is rude. But we don't agree on what constitutes an interruption.
close dynamics intense mothers relationship
I think it's that the same dynamics that go on between any close relationship go on here. It's just particularly intense between mothers and daughters.
coming dealing feeling gives people somehow
When you feel that the people you are dealing with day to day don't have manners, it gives you the feeling that the world is somehow coming apart. It makes you feel that everything is out of control.
mistake communication believe
The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.
communication independence world
Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.
frustration men offering
If women are often frustrated because men do not respond to their troubles by offering matching troubles, men are often frustrated because women do.
reason gender authority
Part of the reason images of women in positions of authority are marked by their gender is that the very notion of authority is associated with maleness.
communication female males
Male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication
mother father men
Like most men, my father is interested in action. And this is why he disappoints my mother when she tells him she doesn't feel well and he offers to take her to the doctor. He is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.
girl made
Relationships are made of talk - and talk is for girls and women.
looks language realizing
We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has