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Sex Lies And Conversation

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Socio-linguist Deborah Tannen illustrates that communication differences within men and women in “Sex, Lies and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other.” Tannen provides an anecdote to describe the same conversational problems that happen on married couples. Tannen states different communication styles of men and women cause misunderstanding or even ruin their marriage. Tannen also provides the solution of understanding “cross-cultural” differences can improve male and female relationship.
In the first half of her essay, Tannen illustrates men and women communicate differently since they are raised at a young age. Little girls exchange their secrets to retain their friendship. Women maintain their friendship by sharing life stories and expressing feelings. In addition, women expect their husbands to be a listener as the best friends do. According to Tannen, “For women, as for girls, …show more content…

She compares the “physical positon” between male and female during a conversation. Women talk face-to-face, while men look everywhere. The “physical position” cause women to consider men are not listening. As Tannen states, “The impression of not listening results from misalignments in the mechanics of conversation” (264). Besides, Tannen claims that men change a number of topics in a conversation, but women stay one topic instead. The drawback of “[s]witching topics is another habit that gives women the impression men aren’t listening” (264). Finally, men as listeners do not make noises is another habit that women believe men are not listening. Linguist Lynette Hirschman found that women make more listener-noise, such as “mhm,” “uhuh,” and “year,” to show “I’m with you (qtd. in Tannen 265). Women expect listeners to express opinions or agreement or give comfort. On the other hand, men keep silent because they do not tend to argue with women in the

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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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“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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She uses the concept of “ritual opposition” to help build her argument that genders communicate differently. Men tend to be more outspoken than women. Tannen gives evidence to support this she gives an example of how men tend have an agonism approach to

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Communication is a critical foundation of every relationship; without it the relationship is deemed unsuccessful. Unsuccessful communication can result in constant tension, power inequalities and disagreements. Relational Dialectics is a communication theory, formed by Leslie Baxter and Barbara Montgomery, in which personal relationships are judged upon the management of tension produced by contradictory forces. (Thrift, 2017). Each of the contradictory forces contain two components, an internal source, between the individuals in the relationship and and external source, which is interference from the outside world.

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However, she neglects to say it is contentious. Next, she goes as far as to state that there isn’t a correct way to speak (333). Next, within her categorization, Tannen chose to stay within the binary of men and women. More so, Tannen’s primary setting focus is within social or workplace arenas. Her examples include personal experiences from women or men with whom she has conversed.

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Often times, men and women have very different communication styles. Most couples who are in intimate relationships agree on this fact, but many are oblivious on how to handle these differences. Deborah Tannen has a strong belief that even though men and women speak the same structural language, their use of speech and conversational patterns can be very different. An example of how different masculine and feminine communication styles can be is observed in the 2006 romantic comedy film, The Break-Up.

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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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“Divergent perceptions and absence of a common language of communication ... they fail to fathom each other’s feelings and likes and dislikes” (Priya). Miscommunication between people creates rifts and lays pretense for tension and dispassion. Without communication, people become impatient and disassociate. “They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English”(Tan 31).

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There is a distinguished balance in the relationship of women and men and it is visible in coexisting and procreating beyond themselves. In making decisions that are influenced by mistakes sometimes, one person gets the short end of the stick. In Hills Like White Elephants, the feminine role is displayed by a woman named Jig, whose feelings and thoughts get pushed aside to cater to the main male character’s wants and needs. In this case the “operation,” that cannot even be called by it’s true name or else the objective to persuade would not be met and ruin their lives. Masculine and feminine attributes have been visible in literature from the beginning of language, with the response of love and forcing one’s self to put aside: “me” for “you.”

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Anyhow, is important to know that the missing piece of a relationship is communication, and understand that men and women are different. Although Tannen, in Sex, Lies, and Conversation, states that communication manners vary from men and women, causing conflict; however, Judy Brady,

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In the article “Who Does The Talking”, Deborah Tannen implies that “women and men conversate equally” (Tannen 356). Tannen justifies this by researching women’s (“talking to much”) and men’s (“talking less than women”), but in reality the research found was that both men and women talk coequal. She describes and illustrates this research in order to inform readers don’t (“judge a book by it’s cover”) in other words do “research on women and men talk equally before suggesting that women talk more than men” (Tannen 356). Tannen addresses men and women by questioning who talks more ,and in this case, “researches were done on both men and women talking”,but both speak more in different

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Communication can be either verbal or nonverbal. Nonverbal communication is more immediate, but more ambiguous than verbal communication. Men and women differ significantly in their propensity to use nonverbal communication, their skill in interpreting it and their means of signaling their meaning. Accordingly, understanding gender differences in nonverbal communication is important when dealing with the opposite sex. One of the reasons that men and women differ in their use of nonverbal communication is that their reasons for communicating are often different, according to John Gray, author of the best-seller "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

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Tannen used her genderlect theory to help bridge that gap by acknowledging and achieving an understanding of the language of each gender. Conversation between men and women can be described like cross-cultural communication. This is the basis of Tannen’s You Just Don’t Understand. In an effort to bridge that communication gap between genders, she examined the differences between how and why people communicate.

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