Deborah Tannen
Sociologist
1945-06-07
Quotes by Deborah Tannen
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When daughters react with annoyance or even anger at the smallest, seemingly innocent remarks, mothers get the feeling that talking to their daughters can be like walking on eggshells: they have to watch every word.
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I think it is important to remember that there are so many different ways to be sisters.
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As a sociolinguist, I want to know how cultural differences affect the ways people talk and listen. My research method, inspired by the work of Robin Lakoff and John Gumperz of the University of California at Berkeley, is sociolinguistic microanalysis. I tape-record and transcribe naturally occurring conversations.
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Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention - an argument culture.
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The death of compromise has become a threat to our nation as we confront crucial issues such as the debt ceiling and that most basic of legislative responsibilities: a federal budget. At stake is the very meaning of what had once seemed unshakable: 'the full faith and credit' of the U.S. government.
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The political Right is particularly vehement when it comes to compromise. Conservatives are now strongly swayed by the Tea Party movement, whose clarion call is a refusal to compromise regardless of the practical consequences.
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A double bind is far worse than a straightforward damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't dilemma. It requires you to obey two mutually exclusive commands: Anything you do to fulfill one violates the other.
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If women talk in ways expected of them or project a feminine demeanor, it's seen as weak. But if they talk in ways associated with men or bosses, then they're seen as too aggressive. Whatever they do violates one or the other expectation: either you're not talking as you should as a woman or as boss.
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Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.
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When women told me they'd always wished they had a sister, they were thinking of this ideal of mutual encouragement and support. Many of those who have sisters also yearn for this ideal because their relationships with their sisters don't always live up to it.
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Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence.
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Many women feel it is natural to consult with their partners at every turn, while many men automatically make more decisions without consulting their partners.
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If women are often frustrated because men do not respond to their troubles by offering matching troubles, men are often frustrated because women do.
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Though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and men on the second. It is as if their lifeblood ran in different directions.
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The desire for freedom and independence becomes more of an issue for many men in relationships, whereas interdependence and connection become more of an issue for many women.
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The chivalrous man who holds a door open or signals a woman to go ahead of him when he's driving is negotiating both status and connection.
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More men feel comfortable doing public speaking, while more women feel comfortable doing private speaking.
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Like most men, my father is interested in action. And this is why he disappoints my mother when she tells him she doesn't feel well and he offers to take her to the doctor. He is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.
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Girls are not accustomed to jockeying for status in an obvious way; they are more concerned that they be liked.
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Many men honestly do not know what women want, and women honestly do not know why men find what they want so hard to comprehend and deliver.
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