What Do You Mean By Deborah Tannen

Deborah Tannen’s essay “But What Do You Mean?” focuses on what she claims are differences between men and women when it comes to social interaction. The essay is sectioned into seven categories, in which she talks about how men and women tend to think and react when it comes to apologizing, criticizing, thanking, fighting, praising, complaining, and joking with others. In general, she seems to promote the idea that women tend to be more polite and refined, considering the feelings of others when conversing and taking everything as a formality. In contrast, men are apparently more blunt, taking a more direct approach with matters and being more unconcerned with how they may affect others. Women tend to automatically apologize and thank others

There are over six thousand five hundred different languages in the world, not counting the ones we do not recognize as languages. In Deborah Tannen’s, “But What Do You Mean,” Tannen writes about how men and women interact different with each other. Tannen talks about how men and women have different meanings of what is an appropriate way to speak. Tannen explains how women puts others feelings first. In Mindy Kaling’s, “Types of Women in Romantic Comedies Who Are Not Real,” Kaling writes about how media presents romance in a way that is not true. Kaling gives an analysis of how romantic comedies are not real. Kaling writes about different types are woman and romance scenarios. In Mike Rose’s, “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” Rose writes about how

This quote is an important representation of when the author Deborah Tannen first realized that it was very common for anyone in society to judge much more on the women about their clothing then the men. In actuality besides clothing, Tannen also realizes that women no matter how they dress, or what they say or do, are marked in some way. She is explaining to the readers how not only are the men’s styles are unmarked or rather, irrelevant, but how the appearance of men is rarely ever judged.

The relationship that I see between what Treasure discusses and what Tannen is warning us about has to do with listening and how it affects us in our daily lives. In the article that Deborah Tannen wrote titled “The Argument Culture Moving from Debate to Dialogue,” stated that she believes that opposition is the best way to get anything done. That an argument is the only way to get your point a crossed to someone. Tannen stated that she believes the best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate. That instead of listening to some else, it is just better to set up a debate instead. Tannen also stated that she believes the best way to show that you are really paying attention to them is to criticize them. That instead of listening to them,

“The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue” by Deborah Tannen is about how our society focuses heavily on debate and how it affects our education system. There are many different styles of debate and Tannen points out that our society spends too much time attempting to prove people wrong instead of considering the other side’s point of view. Tannen talks about the Chinese approach in a debate mentioned in a book written by Walter Ong. During the classical period of China, the preferred style of debate was exposition rather than argument. Their goal was to enlighten the opposing side rather than overwhelm them with information.

In the following, Deborah Tannen who is a Professor at Georgetown University says, that “women are marked and men are unmarked”(130-135). This explains how women are being discriminated as marked due to women’s traits, and that men are unmarked because they do not have discrimination traits. The term “marked” means it is a staple that relates to the way language is being said. Women are marked in ways, such the appearance a woman has and having certain titles. Women are criticized each and everyday just by how they are dressed.

o men talk more than women in a classroom setting? In “How Male and Female

The book includes some psychological research to explain how our minds prevent us from admitting our mistakes. The authors propose valuable solutions to promote insight, honesty, and personal awareness. Although self-justification seems to be challenging to understand, Tavris and Aronson give very helpful advice that can make relationships successful.

People make mistakes all the time; therefore, they use apologizes to show the respect, politeness, and regret in order to appeal to the other person. Apologizing is a key technique for people to communicate. Apologies are usually used when a person makes a mistake and wants to correct it, but sometimes the ways people use them can change the purpose of the apologizes.

In the Article “Taking a “War of Words” Too Literally” written by Deborah Tannen it is often indicated that being extremely pugnacious is the subconscious nature of our everyday Westernized society. This type of normalized reasoning for an altercation is pointed out as being the incorrect justification to have an argument. Therefore Tannen is correct that in today's society a vast majority of Americans have adapted a very fervent aggressive and argumentative culture that they do not seem to recognize. Modern politics and the media have a large role played out within the cultivation of such a contentious type of debate though the root comes from the education system.

Politeness is able to show a person’s feelings towards others and awareness of a social custom. There are many purposes of politeness including: creating a public self image, creating solidarity, threatening people to send a negative message, not threatening people or upsetting them, indicating social relationship, showing awareness of social context, and power dynamics. The value of polite speech in a culture has the purpose of creating solidarity. Polite speech in a specific culture is very important and should be practiced as much as possible.

In Deborah Tannen’s article “There is No Unmarked Woman” she focuses on how women are being misconceived and prejudged on solely the way they’re dressed. The main point in the article is that there is no such thing as an unmarked woman – men have the option and women simply do not. To be “marked” in the way Tannen states it is changing the meaning of a word by simply adding a participle, but that participle has no meaning on its own. Deborah Tannen points out that even in the English language marked is a staple of linguistic theory. By simply adding a linguistic participle to a word that already has no meaning by itself can change the meaning of a word. As Tannen states in her article that women must make a decision on how they wish to appear on a day-to-day basis through their makeup, hair style, shoes, clothes, etc. When women are choosing how to appear everyday they’re trying to escape the preconceptions that men never really have to face due to more narrow decisions. Tannen makes a good statement when she refers to the research of Ralph Fasold in which men are actually marked. “Fasold points out that girls are born with fully female bodies, while boys are born with modified female bodies.” Tannen writes. In conclusion Tannen says how she’s upset the

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

According to the text of Deborah Tannen, "Bossy" is more than a word for women”, it is clear how strong the words can be. In the case of the word “Bossy”, it has a different meaning according to who is said to, a male or a female. When a man is called bossy is ok because they are expected to be like that, on the other hand, if a woman is called the same way doing the same job, she is being aggressive. In today´s world, this statement is true. As we are looking for gender equality, women doing the same job get paid less than men. This is a stereotype that woman have carried for centuries. “Bossy” is a very restrictive word when referred to women but I don´t believe language as a whole is. Words have power but the way people use them is how it

Language is used all around the world. Men and women have various ways of using language. There are many factors in using language such as: regional, ethic, and class backgrounds; gender; and age (Tannen 214). Deborah Tannen “How Male and Female Students Use Language differently” elaborates on this topic adequately. Tannen elaborates male and female language patterns, the debate type teaching formats used in college classrooms, and the different male and female attitudes toward vocal expressions exercises used in the classroom that creates a dissatisfying environment for females. Ms. Tannen mainly focuses on the languages differences of men and women. She concludes that different classroom strategies need to be studied and applied in order to accentuate and improve student participation in the classroom from both males and females. In analyzing this paper, three things are evident. One must consider how men and women bond differently, how speaking in a classroom is more adaptable to men in a debate scenario, and how men and women communicate and participate in a group exercise