Author: Deborah Tannen

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks

Pub. in: July, 2001

ISBN: 0060959622

Pages: 352

Measurements: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches

Origin of product: USA

Order code: BA01278

Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0060959623

The Number 1 Bestseller in America.

This is a book of sociolinguistics and is also suitable for the general reader. What is more interesting than how men and women talk? Gender research is controversial. It is important because when all other cultural disparities are eliminated, issues of gender differences in communication styles remain.
For men home may be a place where they are free to sit in silence because they do not have to compete. For women home may represent to them a place where they are able to speak freely. They may pursue intimacy. They don't necessarily have to play a supporting role, and they don't have to go to the trouble of claiming the stage and appearing self-involved and vain. Some men do not discuss their troubles with anyone. Women bond in pain. Still, women know that talk is risky. Among other things, the consequences of malicious gossip may ensue. Attention to details concerning a person is often a sign of romantic interest.

Men and women have different habits for social talk and make different uses of it. Where women are expert and men are not, they may lose ground in conversations because men, for cultural reasons, may still be seeking dominant roles. Women lack experience in defending themselves against challenges and they may misinterpret challenges as personal attacks on their credibility.

Typically, in writing and speaking men may seek to persuade in order to be respected and women may seek to be inoffensive in order to be liked. Experimental studies show that men are more comfortable than women giving opinions and speaking in an authoritative way to a group and women are more comfortable supporting others. Women engage in rapport-talk, emphasizing connection. Men engage in contests.

Men may not want to listen at length because it frames them as subordinate. Men understand they do have to listen to fathers and superiors, bosses. Men may invoke the theme of aggression to meet affiliative ends. Different world views shape every aspect of talking. Women tell stories of community, men tell stories of contest. Female accomodation for the sake of harmony can take its toll in mounting resentment. Sometimes the result is divorce.

Indirectness in and of itself does not signify powerlessness. Entire cultures operate on elaborate rules of indirect speech. The example of Japan comes to mind. There are cultures where the men use indirect speech, more stately, nore elaborate, possibly more formal and archaic, and the women use direct rough speech. Styles more typical of men are generally evaluated more positively. Women make more adjustments than men in mixed groups. Complementary schismogenesis, a mutually aggravating spiral, may set in where men and women have divergent sensitivities.

The book is well-done, the case is well-argued, and the results are, in a sense, disheartening since none of us can leave our skins. Men are urged to acquire female characteristics of communicating, and women male styles, in order to have more skills and sensitivities at their disposal. I would guess that the disheartening aspect of the experience of reading this quite excellent book is encountering the case studies of misunderstandings which all too well reflect our own experiences in every day domestic and voacational life.

(From quoting Mary Sibley, USA)

Target readers: All men and women who wish to better understand and get along well with the opposite sex.

Better with You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation :

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