Deborah Tannen Analysis

Men and woman coexisting in the working field (or in general) is not an easy subject to grasp upon; considering the fact that men and women look and perceive matters on a totally different scale than each other. In society, men and women tend to not fully understand each other when it comes to conversations, work, emotions, etc. Here is a question to ask ourselves: What generally makes men and women so different from each other and in what aspects? Deborah Tannen further explains and talks about the subject of men vs. women miscommunications in her article titled “But what do you mean?”. Because women are not trying to avoid the one-down position, that is unfortunately where they may end up and author supports this with the use of compare

The author’s style of using examples and anecdotes really makes the main point of the author seem credible as well as making the reader understand the issue more clearly. Exemplification is the use of specific and vivid examples to provide evidence towards a certain idea. The author sites several examples in each one of her paragraphs throughout her entire article. In paragraph eleven, Tannen shares an anecdote with us: “A women who co-wrote a report with a male colleague was hurt when she read a rough draft to him and he leapt into a critical response- “Oh, that’s too dry! You have to make it snappier!” She herself would have been more likely to say, “That’s a really good start. Of course, you’ll want to make it a little snappier when you revise” (Tannen para. 11). This anecdote was provided by the author to show the reader a real life example of how men and women react and respond differently under, in this case, criticism. Tannen’s essay as a whole is mainly set up with the use of examples, but she does this so she can break down each paragraph and describe how each paragraph relates back to her main point. The purpose of the use exemplification is so that the author can get her main point across to the reader. Tannen does this throughout her entire essay precisely to provide proof and

The author wanted to split up her article into seven sub categories simply for organization. Tannen felt that the reader would understand her in a better way if she separated her article into sub ideas, and deeply explain each subject in order for the audience to comprehend the common miscommunication between the two genders. Classification is the sorting of a main idea into groups or categories. Classification is prominent in her article and is the basic structure on how this piece was setup. Tannen organizes her article to have her paragraphs talk about the seven most common miscommunication which are apologies, criticism, thank-yous, fighting, praise, complaints and jokes. The purpose of the use of classification is to better prove the notion that men and women think differently especially when it comes to those seven subjects. This device is very helpful for the reader as it divides subjects for further understanding and gives the reader a sense of author