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You just don't understand : women and men in conversation

By:

Tannen, Deborah

Publication details: London Virago 1991Description: 330p. ; 24cmISBN:

1853813818

Subject(s):

Summary: Why do so many women feel that men don't tell them anything, but just lecture and criticise? Why do so many men feel that women nag them and never get to the point? In this pioneering book Deborah Tannen shows us how women and men talk in different ways, for profoundly different reasons. While women use language to make connections and reinforce intimacy, men use it to preserve their status and independence. Some have claimed that conversations are the forum of male power games, but the author suggests that jockeying for attention is not the whole story and that even when domination is the result, it is not always the intention. She shows how many frictions may arise because girls and boys grow up in essentially different cultures. Where women use language to seek confirmation, make connections and reinforce intimacies, men use it to protect their independence and negotiate status. The result is that conversation becomes a cross-cultural communication, fraught with genuine confusion.

Holdings
Item type	Home library	Class number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Book	Newcomb Library at Homerton Healthcare Shelves	HM 258 TAN (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		13763

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Previous	HM 220 RIC Policing domestic violence	HM 220 SHI Domestic violence :	HM 220 SHI Domestic violence :	HM 258 TAN You just don't understand : women and men in conversation	HM 295 MER Faith facts: a multifaith perspective	HM 300 BUB Care, gender and justice	HM 300 GOL Social mobility and class structure in modern Britain	Next

Originally published: New York : Morrow, 1990.

Bibliography: p310-319. - Includes index.

Why do so many women feel that men don't tell them anything, but just lecture and criticise? Why do so many men feel that women nag them and never get to the point? In this pioneering book Deborah Tannen shows us how women and men talk in different ways, for profoundly different reasons. While women use language to make connections and reinforce intimacy, men use it to preserve their status and independence. Some have claimed that conversations are the forum of male power games, but the author suggests that jockeying for attention is not the whole story and that even when domination is the result, it is not always the intention. She shows how many frictions may arise because girls and boys grow up in essentially different cultures. Where women use language to seek confirmation, make connections and reinforce intimacies, men use it to protect their independence and negotiate status. The result is that conversation becomes a cross-cultural communication, fraught with genuine confusion.

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