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9781853814716

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Tannen combines a novelist's ear for the way people speak with a rare power of original analysis ... fascinating - OLIVER SACKS

Here, Tannen expands relentlessly upon a single chapter in her That's Not What I Meant! (1985) - the one that dealt with gender differences in conversational style and that, she says, prompted 90% of the subsequent requests for interviews, articles, and lectures. It all begins, Tannen Finds, in childhood. Boys tend to congregate in hierarchal groups, play competitive games, and engage in one-upmanship and jockeying for status. Gifts relate one-on-one or in small groups and tend to play games (hopscotch, jump-rope) in which everyone gets a turn. Gifts also spend much time gossiping or negotiating differences. As adults, women's language, Tannen says, is usually nondemanding and negotiable. Would you like to do such and such? a woman typically asks, and is then hurt when the response is no. A woman will discuss life's downers, expecting sympathy, and will be turned off when her man comes up with a solution. Tannen ranges widely through linguistic research, poetry, and fiction to document her points. Most interesting: transcripts of a series of videotaped conversations of school-age, same-sex groups, which bolster Tannen's observation that girls and boys speak and act as though they belong to different species. Persuasive - but Tannen hammers home her limited number of points with such force that the reader cries uncle halfway through the book. (Kirkus Reviews)

This is a detailed analysis of the mire of crossed communication between men and women, by a US professor of linguistics. Behind all the cliches, the sexes really do speak different languages. You Just Don't Understand is full of pleasing examples that most of us can recognize: lost in a strange town, a woman's immediate instinct is to ask for directions, men will do almost anything to avoid asking for help. Women play 'do you like me?' while men play 'do you respect me?'. Men worry about persuading, women about offending; she needs rapport, he craves self-display. Misunderstandings can be destructive: women may find it easier to leave than to put up serious opposition; men may withdraw or fight rather than compromise. Tannen does not apportion blame - it's not a question of women being right and men wrong; it's how we are all brought up, something we absorb from society. Professor Tannen explains that both can retain their style, while learning to interpret and understand the way the other thinks. There is something very satisfying in having it all examined and laid out before us; it is useful as well as very entertaining. (Kirkus UK)

'Tannen combines a novelist's ear for the way people speak with a rare power of original analysis ... fascinating' OLIVER SACKS

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Best-selling author Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She has also been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princetown University.

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