Woman And Men In Conversation By Deborah Tannen Analysis
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“You’re just not understanding!” are words that run rampant in conversations between my husband and me. That is the reason I chose to read You Just Don’t Understand: Woman and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen. I needed insight, a way to view conversation differently, something to tell me I wasn’t going crazy when speaking to the male in my house. Sometimes, it would really feel as if I were talking to an alien, someone who spoke a completely different language, even though we use the same verbal construct. Tannen lends her research and knowledge to me as a reader and a fellow woman, thus has impacted the way I communicate with my husband. By learning and understanding that women and men are raised in parallel, yet different cultures, and interpret messages differently, I am able to communicate more effectively with the people I encounter.…show more content… One would think that because boys and girls are raised in the same proximity and using the same language, conversation would flow easily enough. However, that is not the case. The cultures boys and girls are raised in provide contexts in which they act regarding conversation, conflict, and connection. In her text, Tannen references a study performed by Amy Sheldon (p.22) where the moderator videotaped three- and four-year old boys and girls playing at a daycare center. Each group of three that played together ended up fighting over a plastic pickle. Tannen notes from Sheldon’s study that “the girls mitigated the conflict and preserved harmony by compromise and evasion” while the boys, who fought longer than the girls, ended up using “insistence, appeals to rules, and threats to physical violence.” The way these toddlers handled their discussions differed substantially and gives readers an insight to genders, even at a young age, communicating