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Deborah Tannen Sex Lies And Conversation Summary

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Everyday thousands of people communicate with one another. These conversations happen nearly instantaneously between people and are a key to a successful relationship. In Deborah Tannen’s essay, “Sex, Lies, and Conversation” she explains the differences between men and women’s communication patterns. In Tannen’s essay, she uses documented research, vocabulary, and figurative language to help draw in as well as inform her readers’ about different gender communication patterns. “Sex, Lies, and Conversation” is an article about the different communication patterns associated with males and females. Tannen explains how males and females communicate as young boys and girls, with others of the same gender, and how the different genders place and express themselves while communicating. Tannen even goes to say that talk between men and women is, “like cross-cultural communication” (424). She …show more content…

One of the more prominent demonstrations of when she used an analogy was, “for women, as for girls, intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and talk is the thread from which it is woven”, she uses this to show how women think talking is the cornerstone of relationships (424). The sentence can be translated into talk being the base of intimacy that relationships are built upon. An instance when Tannen used a metaphor was, “…a virtual epidemic of failed conversation” which describes the millions of cases of divorces each year (424). An epidemic is a widespread appearance of an infectious disease, and while Tannen is not saying that divorce is an infectious disease, but rather that divorce is a wide spreading “disease” of failed conversations. Tannen’s use of figurative language helped give her writing depth. I especially like her metaphors, because they helped to wrap things up, but to also say many things at the same

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Of all the 70 scientific studies Tannen could have chosen to talk about, the number of which she releases later in her paper, her choice of these two serves to demonstrate how biased and varied in results the scientific studies on this topic have been in the past. This helps Tannen justify the need for her article on the subject as it gives reason to why the issue on which gender speaks more still has not yet been resolved. Later in her essay, Tannen uses the results of a survey done by Campbell Leaper and Melanie Ayres on the results of 70 studies published in scientific journals several times. Her first use of their results follows her statements on the studies talked about earlier in this paper, noting that they “found that counting words yielded no consistent differences”. She then goes on to say, “Campbell and Ayres note that many studies find women doing more ‘affiliative

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Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, is a popular author in the United States of America. Mostly of her focus in her articles and books is on the expression of interpersonal relationships in contentious interaction. Tannen became well known after her book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation was published. However, this was not her only claim to fame. Along with this book, she also wrote many other essays and articles including the popular article “Marked Women, Unmarked Men.”

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In Rhetoric and Argument and What Words Can Tell , Francine Prose brings upon a compelling look into the world of writing. A excerpt from her own personal view of writing, the article is primarily for students or those that are interested in learning more of the process of writing as told by a recognized author. Prose seeks to enlighten and teach his audience about the complexity and difficulty involved in writing a good piece of literature, and how the careful choosing of certain words can significantly alter the literature. Prose uses the rhetorical device of metaphor in your excerpt to compare the details involved in writing to the intricate wirings of a computer. Prose reveals to the audience a new view of literature, where the writing

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531 Words | 3 Pages

Deborah Tannen believes that the word “bossy” is a category that most women get put into, and not only women but also children from a very young age. Tannen believes that this category is an insult to women, and she uses diction and imagery to create and describe her idea of how women have been put into the “bossy” category since they were young and how that affects them. As a result she gains empathy and understanding from women who read her article. Tannen creates a connection with the readers by having them relate to being called bossy from a young age and on. She uses examples of strong and powerful women that have been put into categories as a way of creating social spaces for women.

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Dillard implements imagery all throughout her essay, which gives the reader a clear picture of the events occurring. For instance, she describes her husband “gesturing inside a circle of darkness” as a result of him gradually travelling farther away from her (Dillard). Ultimately, the use of imagery in this case represents the loneliness the narrator begins to feel. The author also utilizes metaphors to get her message across. Dillard compares “grammar and lexicon” to a “decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel” because without the other, they will not be able to fulfill their purpose (Dillard).

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Among the ones she uses are appealing to a sense of humour, making herself relatable, and also making the reader feel angry with

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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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After reading the article Can We Talk by Deborah Tannen I agree with her on her statements. Where she says "When a men and woman interpret the same interchange in such conflicting ways, it`s no wonder they can find themselves leveling angry charges of selfishness and obstinacy at each other ". The reason i believe in this is my husband and I have these all the time. One my experience is about stopping to get a drink while we was out and bout like the example Tannen gave about the married couple. I got mad because my husband said no to me about stopping get a drink.

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1130 Words | 5 Pages

With this specific thought in mind, I delved into the writing of Riki Anne Wilchins in an attempt to rummage through her words to find her values, intentions, and modes of persuasion while also looking to see how she chose to effectively project her writing to potential readers. In Riki Anne Wilchins' writing “What Does It Cost to Tell the Truth” Wilchins addresses a multitude of issues caused not only by transgender stereotypes, but all forms of stereotyping. Another example of authority is how she relays to the reader her unfortunate personal experiences with preconceptions society holds. Her examples of credibility included a multitude of experiences when she came face-to-face with ‘social inspection’– the act of society placing meaning on trivial aspects of our lives based off culture.

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Summary According to Deborah Tannen, agonism refers to ritualized opposition, a situation when a party in a debate wins rather than an argument that comes up when two parties disagree. She claims that the academic world is very agonistic. We tend to think that intellectual inquiry is a metamorphic battle and to show our skills is to criticize, find fault and attack and foster this in students. Students are often taught to criticize and find the weakest point from one’s work to support their view while ignoring the strength and other important facts of the paper that would support other’s viewpoint.

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Morghan Renfrow Instructor C. Shackelford English 1113, Section 101 1 September 2016 Analysts of “How Male and Female Students Use Language Differently” An essay written by Deborah Tannen called “How male and females students use language differently”, is describing how they talk and interact with others. The writer presents different studies on how language changes based on a certain person. The essay states that men are more aggressive and talkative, while women are calm and modest about talking about the views they share.

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807 Words | 4 Pages

Sex, Lies and Conversation There are many differences between a man and woman, communication is just one difference. Deborah Tannen, a University of California graduate, got her PhD in linguistics at Georgetown University; there she studied the communication between men and women. Tannen has published over one hundred articles and wrote over twenty books, including You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1990), which spent almost four years on the New York Times best seller list and was translated into twenty-nine languages. The article Sex, Lies and Conversation appeared in the Washington Post in 1990 and gives insight to how opposite sexes communicate with each other. From an early age we are programed to play and be friends with the same gender as our own.

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The Mask You Live In, show all the pressure from the media, their friends, and the grown people’s life. All the boys and man faced with some messages provide them to hide their real emotions, built up the idea that women are only for sexual conquest instead viewing women are friends, and allow men to communicate anger with other by violence. All the controversial about gender associate with race, class, their situation, creating a confusing of problems all men and boy must to be a man.

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In this paper, I will briefly cover on the interpersonal communication concepts. At the beginning of my relationship with Diana we typically discussed more factual information, such as the outside layer of an onion. Like the textbook states, it took time to get through the first two layers of the onion. Today, we are through all the layers, so our meetings had much more emotions and opinions stated than what would have been when we first started talking to each other years ago.

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One of these perspectives is analyzing communication through gender. In the book, You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tannen (1990) popularized the term “genderlect” to describe the way in which men and women communicate with each other. She suggested that men and women have different styles of conversing, forming two distinct dialects. In a review of Tannen’s book, DeFrancisco (1992) attributed the differing communication styles of men and women to the respective cultures in which they grow up. Because of such gender differences, misunderstanding between men and women creates a gap in the communication process.

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