Sex, Sight and Conversation
Sex, Sighs and Conversation: Why Men and Women
Can’t Communicate
In the article Sex, Sighs and Conversation: Why Men and Women Can’t Communicate, the author Deborah Tannen explains the gender differences in language use. Those differences begin with how girls and boys use language as children, growing up in different worlds. Researches have found that little girls play in small groups or in pairs and hey always have a best friend with whom they spent a lot of time talking. Girls learn how to use language to negotiate intimacy. On the other hand, boys tend to play competitive games in larger groups, which are hierarchical. In this case, boys learn to use language to preserve independence and negotiate their status, trying to hold center stage, challenge and resist challenges, display knowledge and verbal skills. Those different assumptions about the purpose of language persist into adulthood. For example, in the case of asking directions, the same interchange is experienced differently by women and men. Form a woman’s perspective you ask for help, you get it and you get to where you’re going. But a man is aware that by admitting ignorance and asking for information he positions himself one-down to someone else. In short, the author says that understanding gender differences in ways of talking is the first step toward changing. When men and women think of the differences as cross-cultural issue, people will find that they and their partners will be willing to make small adjustments that will improve our
Can’t Communicate
In the article Sex, Sighs and Conversation: Why Men and Women Can’t Communicate, the author Deborah Tannen explains the gender differences in language use. Those differences begin with how girls and boys use language as children, growing up in different worlds. Researches have found that little girls play in small groups or in pairs and hey always have a best friend with whom they spent a lot of time talking. Girls learn how to use language to negotiate intimacy. On the other hand, boys tend to play competitive games in larger groups, which are hierarchical. In this case, boys learn to use language to preserve independence and negotiate their status, trying to hold center stage, challenge and resist challenges, display knowledge and verbal skills. Those different assumptions about the purpose of language persist into adulthood. For example, in the case of asking directions, the same interchange is experienced differently by women and men. Form a woman’s perspective you ask for help, you get it and you get to where you’re going. But a man is aware that by admitting ignorance and asking for information he positions himself one-down to someone else. In short, the author says that understanding gender differences in ways of talking is the first step toward changing. When men and women think of the differences as cross-cultural issue, people will find that they and their partners will be willing to make small adjustments that will improve our