\u201d Paper<\/p>\n
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For the \u201cSex, Lies and Conversation\u201d paper you will be writing about the article written by Deborah Tannen that I gave you in class. Your purpose is to evaluate her theory on male and female communication and offer your opinion on whether her theory is valid and still accurate twenty-one years after she published the article.<\/p>\n
In your introduction, you will identify the author and article (full title at least once) and explain briefly what Tannen\u2019s general theory on male\/female communication is to your reader. You\u2019ll also explain that you are evaluating and discussing her theory in order to see if it is still a valid, proven theory.<\/p>\n
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Each body paragraph will focus on one of Tannen\u2019s \u201cdifferences\u201d between men and women ( the ones we just discussed in class and the one above). For each one you will briefly explain the difference, talk about whether you believe this difference is accurate and true and provide one example of someone in your life (friend, relative, yourself) who either demonstrates her theory or contradicts it.<\/p>\n
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When you have covered all of her differences, your conclusion will basically move on to discuss whether, based on what you have just said and demonstrated, you believe Tannen\u2019s theory is still current, useful and valid, that it is false or outdated or that it is somewhere in between the two extremes.<\/p>\n
The paper will run three to four pages in MLA paper format. It is due Tuesday, June 17.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSex, Lies and Conversation\u201d Article<\/b><\/p>\n
http:\/\/www9.georgetown.edu\/faculty\/tannend\/sexlies.htm<\/p>\n
Sex, Lies and Conversation; Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?<\/p>\n
by Deborah Tannen<\/p>\n
The Washington Post, June 24, 1990<\/p>\n
I WAS ADDRESSING a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living room \u2014 a women\u2019s group that had invited men to join them. Throughout the evening, one man had been particularly talkative, frequently offering ideas and anecdotes, while his wife sat silently beside him on the couch. Toward the end of the evening, I commented that women frequently complain that their husbands don\u2019t talk to them. This man quickly concurred. He gestured toward his wife and said, \u201cShe\u2019s the talker in our family.\u201d The room burst into laughter; the man looked puzzled and hurt. \u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen I come home from work I have nothing to say. If she didn\u2019t keep the conversation going, we\u2019d spend the whole evening in silence.\u201d<\/p>\n
This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to talk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage.<\/p>\n
The pattern was observed by political scientist Andrew Hacker in the late \u201970s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman reports in her new book \u201cDivorce Talk\u201d that most of the women she interviewed \u2014 but only a few of the men \u2014 gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent, that amounts to millions of cases in the United States every year \u2014 a virtual epidemic of failed conversation.<\/p>\n
In my own research, complaints from women about their husbands most often focused not on tangible inequities such as having given up the chance for a career to accompany a husband to his, or doing far more than their share of daily life-support work like cleaning, cooking, social arrangements and errands. Instead, they focused on communication: \u201cHe doesn\u2019t listen to me,\u201d \u201cHe doesn\u2019t talk to me.\u201d I found, as Hacker observed years before, that most wives want their husbands to be, first and foremost, conversational partners, but few husbands share this expectation of their wives.<\/p>\n
In short, the image that best represents the current crisis is the stereotypical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a newspaper held up in front of his face, while a woman glares at the back of it, wanting to talk. Linguistic Battle of the Sexes<\/p>\n
How can women and men have such different impressions of communication in marriage? Why the widespread imbalance in their interests and expectations?<\/p>\n
In the April issue of American Psychologist, Stanford University\u2019s Eleanor Maccoby reports the results of her own and others\u2019 research showing that children\u2019s development is most influenced by the social structure of peer interactions. Boys and girls tend to play with children of their own gender, and their sex-separate groups have different organizational structures and interactive norms.<\/p>\n
I believe these systematic differences in childhood socialization make talk between women and men like cross-cultural communication, heir to all the attraction and pitfalls of that enticing but difficult enterprise. My research on men\u2019s and women\u2019s conversations uncovered patterns similar to those described for children\u2019s groups.<\/p>\n
For women, as for girls, intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and talk is the thread from which it is woven. Little girls create and maintain friendships by exchanging secrets; similarly, women regard conversation as the cornerstone of friendship. So a woman expects her husband to be a new and improved version of a best friend. What is important is not the individual subjects that are discussed but the sense of closeness, of a life shared, that emerges when people tell their thoughts, feelings, and impressions.<\/p>\n
Bonds between boys can be as intense as girls\u2019, but they are based less on talking, more on doing things together. Since they don\u2019t assume talk is the cement that binds a relationship, men don\u2019t know what kind of talk women want, and they don\u2019t miss it when it isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
Boys\u2019 groups are larger, more inclusive, and more hierarchical, so boys must struggle to avoid the subordinate position in the group. This may play a role in women\u2019s complaints that men don\u2019t listen to them. Some men really don\u2019t like to listen, because being the listener makes them feel one-down, like a child listening to adults or an employee to a boss.<\/p>\n
But often when women tell men, \u201cYou aren\u2019t listening,\u201d and the men protest, \u201cI am,\u201d the men are right. The impression of not listening results from misalignments in the mechanics of conversation. The misalignment begins as soon as a man and a woman take physical positions. This became clear when I studied videotapes made by psychologist Bruce Dorval of children and adults talking to their same-sex best friends. I found that at every age, the girls and women faced each other directly, their eyes anchored on each other\u2019s faces. At every age, the boys and men sat at angles to each other and looked elsewhere in the room, periodically glancing at each other. They were obviously attuned to each other, often mirroring each other\u2019s movements. But the tendency of men to face away can give women the impression they aren\u2019t listening even when they are. A young woman in college was frustrated: Whenever she told her boyfriend she wanted to talk to him, he would lie down on the floor, close his eyes, and put his arm over his face. This signaled to her, \u201cHe\u2019s taking a nap.\u201d But he insisted he was listening extra hard. Normally, he looks around the room, so he is easily distracted. Lying down and covering his eyes helped him concentrate on what she was saying.<\/p>\n
Analogous to the physical alignment that women and men take in conversation is their topical alignment. The girls in my study tended to talk at length about one topic, but the boys tended to jump from topic to topic. The second-grade girls exchanged stories about people they knew. The second-grade boys teased, told jokes, noticed things in the room and talked about finding games to play. The sixth-grade girls talked about problems with a mutual friend. The sixth grade boys talked about 55 different topics, none of which extended over more than a few turns. Listening to Body Language<\/p>\n
Switching topics is another habit that gives women the impression men aren\u2019t listening, especially if they switch to a topic about themselves. But the evidence of the 10th-grade boys in my study indicates otherwise. The 10th-grade boys sprawled across their chairs with bodies parallel and eyes straight ahead, rarely looking at each other. They looked as if they were riding in a car, staring out the windshield. But they were talking about their feelings. One boy was upset because a girl had told him he had a drinking problem, and the other was feeling alienated from all his friends.<\/p>\n
Now, when a girl told a friend about a problem, the friend responded by asking probing questions and expressing agreement and understanding. But the boys dismissed each other\u2019s problems. Todd assured Richard that his drinking was \u201cno big problem\u201d because \u201csometimes you\u2019re funny when you\u2019re off your butt.\u201d And when Todd said he felt left out, Richard responded, \u201cWhy should you? You know more people than me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Women perceive such responses as belittling and unsupportive. But the boys seemed satisfied with them. Whereas women reassure each other by implying, \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t feel bad because I\u2019ve had similar experiences,\u201d men do so by implying, \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t feel bad because your problems aren\u2019t so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are even simpler reasons for women\u2019s impression that men don\u2019t listen. Linguist Lynette Hirschman found that women make more listener-noise, such as \u201cmhm,\u201d \u201cuhuh,\u201d and \u201cyeah,\u201d to show \u201cI\u2019m with you.\u201d Men, she found, more often give silent attention. Women who expect a stream of listener noise interpret silent attention as no attention at all.<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s conversational habits are as frustrating to men as men\u2019s are to women. Men who expect silent attention interpret a stream of listener noise as overreaction or impatience. Also, when women talk to each other in a close, comfortable setting, they often overlap, finish each other\u2019s sentences and anticipate what the other is about to say. This practice, which I call \u201cparticipatory listenership,\u201d is often perceived by men as interruption, intrusion and lack of attention.<\/p>\n
A parallel difference caused a man to complain about his wife, \u201cShe just wants to talk about her own point of view. If I show her another view, she gets mad at me.\u201d When most women talk to each other, they assume a conversationalist\u2019s job is to express agreement and support. But many men see their conversational duty as pointing out the other side of an argument. This is heard as disloyalty by women, and refusal to offer the requisite support. It is not that women don\u2019t want to see other points of view, but that they prefer them phrased as suggestions and inquiries rather than as direct challenges.<\/p>\n
In his book \u201cFighting for Life,\u201d Walter Ong points out that men use \u201cagonistic\u201d or warlike, oppositional formats to do almost anything; thus discussion becomes debate, and conversation a competitive sport. In contrast, women see conversation as a ritual means of establishing rapport. If Jane tells a problem and June says she has a similar one, they walk away feeling closer to each other. But this attempt at establishing rapport can backfire when used with men. Men take too literally women\u2019s ritual \u201ctroubles talk,\u201d just as women mistake men\u2019s ritual challenges for real attack. [See box.] The Sounds of Silence<\/p>\n
These differences begin to clarify why women and men have such different expectations about communication in marriage. For women, talk creates intimacy. Marriage is an orgy of closeness: you can tell your feelings and thoughts, and still be loved. Their greatest fear is being pushed away. But men live in a hierarchical world, where talk maintains independence and status. They are on guard to protect themselves from being put down and pushed around.<\/p>\n
This explains the paradox of the talkative man who said of his silent wife, \u201cShe\u2019s the talker.\u201d In the public setting of a guest lecture, he felt challenged to show his intelligence and display his understanding of the lecture. But at home, where he has nothing to prove and no one to defend against, he is free to remain silent. For his wife, being home means she is free from the worry that something she says might offend someone, or spark disagreement, or appear to be showing off; at home she is free to talk.<\/p>\n
The communication problems that endanger marriage can\u2019t be fixed by mechanical engineering. They require a new conceptual framework about the role of talk in human relationships. Many of the psychological explanations that have become second nature may not be helpful, because they tend to blame either women (for not being assertive enough) or men (for not being in touch with their feelings). A sociolinguistic approach by which male-female conversation is seen as cross-cultural communication allows us to understand the problem and forge solutions without blaming either party.<\/p>\n
Once the problem is understood, improvement comes naturally, as it did to the young woman and her boyfriend who seemed to go to sleep when she wanted to talk. Previously, she had accused him of not listening, and he had refused to change his behavior, since that would be admitting fault. But then she learned about and explained to him the differences in women\u2019s and men\u2019s habitual ways of aligning themselves in conversation. The next time she told him she wanted to talk, he began, as usual, by lying down and covering his eyes. When the familiar negative reaction bubbled up, she reassured herself that he really was listening. But then he sat up and looked at her. Thrilled, she asked why. He said, \u201cYou like me to look at you when we talk, so I\u2019ll try to do it.\u201d Once he saw their differences as cross-cultural rather than right and wrong, he independently altered his behavior.<\/p>\n
Women who feel abandoned and deprived when their husbands won\u2019t listen to or report daily news may be happy to discover their husbands trying to adapt once they understand the place of small talk in women\u2019s relationships. But if their husbands don\u2019t adapt, the women may still be comforted that for men, this is not a failure of intimacy. Accepting the difference, the wives may look to their friends or family for that kind of talk. And husbands who can\u2019t provide it shouldn\u2019t feel their wives have made unreasonable demands. Some couples will still decide to divorce, but at least their decisions will be based on realistic expectations.<\/p>\n
In these times of resurgent ethnic conflicts, the world desperately needs cross-cultural understanding. Like charity, successful cross-cultural communication should begin at home.<\/p>\n
Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, is the author of \u201cYou Just Don\u2019t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,\u201d published this month by William Morrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201d Paper For the \u201cSex, Lies and Conversation\u201d paper you will be writing about the article written by Deborah Tannen that I gave you in class. Your purpose is to evaluate her theory on male and female communication and Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}