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
agreement people mind
The argument culture urges us to approach the world-and the people in it-in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition over-weighted.
powerful people criticism
any criticism heard secondhand sounds worse than it would face to face. Words spoken out of our presence strike us as more powerful, just as people we know only by reputation seem larger than life.
mean people littles
Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.
equal-treatment people ifs
Treating people the same is not equal treatment if they are not the same.
people effort tears
Words can be like weapons of destruction: It takes so much effort, and the cooperation of so many people, to build something - and so little effort of so few to tear it down.
mean ideas people
To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It's a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.
fighting views argument
Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.
country religious growing-up
all communication is more or less cross-cultural. We learn to use language as we grow up, and growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, even just being male or female - all result in different ways of talking ...
criticism ongoing gone
In an ongoing relationship, each current criticism packs the punches of all the others that have gone before.
men focus independence
Though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and men on the second. It is as if their lifeblood ran in different directions.
power doors hands
The one who decides who goes ahead has the upper hand, regardless of who gets to go. This is why many women do not feel empowered by such privileges as having doors held open for them. The advantage of going first through the door is less salient to them than the disadvantage of being granted the right to walk through a door by someone who is framed, by his magnanimous gesture, as the arbiter of the right-of-way.
men decision natural
Many women feel it is natural to consult with their partners at every turn, while many men automatically make more decisions without consulting their partners.
responsibility thinking
Critiquing relieves you of the responsibility of doing integrative thinking.
ideas different world
But if you parry individuals points - a negative and defensive enterprise - you never step back and actively imagine a world in which a different system of ideas could be true - a positive act.