Summary Of Sex Lies And Conversation By Deborah Tannen

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. Tannen illustrates a small talk that gathers men and women. During chatting, one woman is quiet, but her husband is talkative. Finally, the small talk turns out the argument on who is the talker at home. Tannen analyzes men’s and women’s opinions; then she concludes that “although American men tend to talk more than women in public situation, they often talk less at home” (263).

She emphasizes the recognition of “cross-cultural” communication is beneficial to repair the conversational issues (Tannen 264). She proposes couples to improve their relationship by learning differences, adjusting conversational styles, and changing attitude. Learning differences is crucial to couples at the beginning of improvement, which helps couples to achieve mutual acceptance. Ideally, couples change their communication patterns according to their partners’ preference. Even though men or women do not change their habits, they still accept partners’ habits instead of complaining. As Tannen claims, “Once the problem is understood, improvement comes naturally”