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Communication In Deborah Tannen's But What Do You Mean

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Essay 3 In Deborah Tannen’s “But What Do You Mean,” she delves into the complications men and women may have when it comes to expressing their ideas and opinions to one another. In this essay, Tannen explores common situations in communication including apologies, criticism, thank-yous, fighting, praise, complaints, and jokes. In each section, she expresses the idea that the lack of communication between men and women is because of differentiations in the thought process. She continues to say that when it comes to voicing opinions males and females are wired differently. While Tannen’s theory may apply to a large spectrum, it is too generalized to base it on individual people. When we begin to generalize each other we never truly take the time to …show more content…

Tannen claims that “research has shown the most common humor among men is razzing, teasing, and mock-hostile attacks” (384). She also explains that women take men’s humor out context and believe the attacks they make to be the truth (385). Gavin’s sense of humor followed the guidelines of Tannen; he tended to be sarcastic and had a dry sense of humor. Julia had a wonderful sense of humor as well; she was very quick witted and could at times be sarcastic as well. It would be untruthful to say that no one ever saw Julia and Gavin laughing together. However, on most occasions, Julia took offense to the well-intended jokes that Gavin made at her expense. Gavin could not understand why Julia’s feelings were hurt so easily over jokes. Instead of communicating to find out the reason, Gavin assumed it was because she was sensitive and took his jokes the wrong way. In Julia’s case, it might have been that she was textbook thinking like a woman, but to her, it was because she had endured bullying throughout middle school and high school. Julia had become extremely self-conscious, so when Gavin joked at her expense, it brought back the painful memories of

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Julia is quite the opposite from her; she is a free spirit, which her mom does not like because she is a hispanic mom who believes no child of hers should go out and be "in other people’s cocinas" (Sanchez, 56). Julia feels suffocated every time Ama compares her to Olga and says Olga did things better which shows imbalance of power in Olga having the power for being the favorite even if she’s dead because she always did what Ama told her and in Amas eyes she was perfect, while Julia was like the black sheep of the family because she never helped and was always getting in trouble. The only thing Julia wants is the love of her mother, but what she gets in return is the blame for her sister's death. That day Olga died, Julia had argued with a teacher, and Ama had to go talk to the principal instead of picking up Olga. Ama never blamed her directly until one day she said, "Maybe if you knew how to behave yourself...

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Introduction The movie When Harry Met Sally is a good example of communication in relationships. It follows the relationship of Harry and Sally as they get to know each other and eventually fall in love. The movie displays a wide range of communication principles including: Type of friendship and communication, cross sex friendships, romantic turning points, and repairing damaged relationships. These communication principles are used to show the progression of Harry and Sally’s relationship.

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In the article, “Marked Women, Unmarked Men,” Tannen differentiates how women and men are judged prematurely by their attire and appearance. She explains how women are judged and marked but men are not, but I believe that men are also marked in society. Tannen’s article, written in 1993, relates relatively well to today’s judgemental society. Her article takes place during a conference meeting of eight men and four women. Instead of Tannen concentrating on the meeting, she began to examine the attire of the men and women.

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Author Tannen begins with details behind communication misconceptions, which leads with indirectness. The book was written to provide knowledge on communication to defeat the common barriers in everyday life. She states in the beginning there are two major ways communication tends to advance, smooth or choppy. You meet someone for the first time and conversation continues to flow with lack of effort, or you meet someone and the conversation takes great effort and goes nowhere. The book was written to determine the reasoning behind each.

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“But What Do You Mean” Relating to Society The question, “why do men and women so often communicate badly, if at all?” Has influenced and motivated Tannen. In “But What Do You Mean” by Deborah Tannen, she discusses many areas of difficulty in communication between men and women. Tannen’s purpose was for her readers to understand the importance of communication, she also has identified several ways in which men and women miscommunicate, and she has taught her readers a few things about our society and how it can be improved.

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Socio-linguist Deborah Tannen demonstrates how men and women communicate differently in her essay “Sex, Lies and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?” In her observations of communication styles, she discusses the way in which men and women communicate leads them to conflict because they have different understanding of their partners’ role. She also explains male and female communication differences not only cause ineffective conversation, but also push couples into a dilemma in their relationship; however, as men and women better understand the differences, their relationship improves. In the first part of her essay, Tannen discusses men and women do not have enough effective communication, which damages their marriage.

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These messages enclose information, and the senders of these messages intend particular meanings to reach the receiver of the message, who will then attribute a meaning to the message. The intended meaning may be varying from the meaning attribute to the message by the receiver. This is not only due to the words was used but also by the non-verbal messages that are also sent (Fielding, 1995). Heath (1997) stated that communication occurs in various ways and at diverse levels of awareness. Barber (1993, cited in Heath, 1997) states that communication is that sharing understandings and involves openness to the enquiry of another person, having attention, perception, receptivity and empathy towards that person.

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