What is it that makes a woman a woman, or what makes a man a man? Deborah Tannen, author and Ph.D. of linguistics, investigates this question within the essay, “There Is No Unmarked Woman.” An excerpt from a larger publication, “Talking from 9 to 5,” written in 1994, “There Is No Unmarked Woman” is an effective examination of the social injustice as to why the state of womanhood is “marked” while the state of manhood is “unmarked”, and what this means for each sex. The book itself is a result of real-life research about the conversational styles in a workplace setting and how conversation impacts productivity and success. Although Tannen uses many effective strategies within the excerpted essay, she most pointedly uses devices such as narration, vivid description, definition, compare-contrast, and example to make herself heard. She also adopts a critical, but humorous, outlook in order to effectively analyze why these social structures exist without discrediting her own voice or style. In the opening paragraphs of “There Is No Unmarked Woman,” Tannen narrates a past experience from a professional conference, therefore beginning the essay on a more personal and relatable note. She begins with, “Some years ago I was at a small working conference of four women and eight men. Instead of concentrating on the discussion I found myself looking at the three other women at the table, thinking how each had a different style and how each style was coherent.” These few sentences allow the reader insight into the author’s thinking process and that even she may judge other women for how they dress and act, creating a more intimate atmosphere between the audience and the author. “One woman had dark brown hair in a classic style, a cross between Cleopatra and Plain Jane...Because she…
|Women pay attention and listen to the whole conversation |Men listen to what they want to listen to |…
The book "We Should Hang Out Sometime" is about an amputee trying to get a girlfriend. As he goes through the different girls, he learns many life lessons. The protagonist, Josh, goes through many experiences and emotions that we have all gone through at one point or another. This help us, as the reader, to connect with Josh on a personal level.…
The communication style of men is more direct. Men are more dominate and may take offence or feel put down when women offers to help and add input in a conversation. Men can come to decisions quickly and on their own. In contrast, women like to discuss the issue with others and ask for opinions before making a decision. Women use communication to build relationships and collaboration to bond with others. Men are usually uncomfortable discussing feelings or showing emotion. Men want to solve a problem and move forward. However, women tend to like to discuss personal feelings, show emotions, and invite input from others. Thus, challenges arise between men and women. For example, after a long day I like to come home and vent to my boyfriend. His interpretations are that I am a constant complainer when really I just want to express my personal…
Communication skills are different among men and women in respect to, and because of, their various occupations and experiences. Women use terms that are more descriptive and take longer to get to the point, while men tend to start with the direct point and fill in as needed. There are also differences in how each gender interprets some phrases. This paper further discusses some of the differences, how these differences relate to miscommunication, and ways that these issues can be dealt with effectively.…
In this chapter, Floyd (2011) discusses the many ways that gender affects interpersonal relationships. He describes is as a “defining feature of our identity, shaping the way we think, look, and communicate” (p. 51). It is explained that each gender culture puts emphasis on different parts of the relationship. Women come to value communication and closeness, while men value taking part in activities together (Floyd, 2011, p. 57). This makes sense when I think about how I communicate with men versus with women.…
A major disparity between men and women is their conversation goals. Women always want to share everything, but men do not. For instance, a woman likes voicing everything she thinks and how she feels. Moreover, the women like to tell story what happened in a day and she want her partners can feel and understand her story. In contrast, a man does not really want to share what is going on in his mind, except that the conversation is inevitable. In contrast, men do not want to share his…
3. What does Tannen see as the fundamental difference between men’s and women’s conversational strategies?…
Another essay that would be a good read is “Man to man, women to women”, by Mark A. Sherman and Adelaide Hags. They talk about how males and females talk about different things. Women tend to talk about kids, jobs, husbands and other female things. Men will usually just stick to sports, work, and anything else that happens to be in their surroundings, as in anything that happens to be on the news. So men and women differ in conversation.…
The fact that men and women are different in their communication styles is understandable. They differ in the way they think and it shows in the way they talk and communicate with each other. Though their communication is unlike each other, we do speak the same language –to each gender it just might have a different meaning, connotations or personal messages.…
Deborah Tannen is the author of the book You Just Don't Understand where she analyzes the different meanings of communication between men and women. Her research shows that women and men use the same words and phrases and yet can interpret and react to those same words and phrases differently. Tannen compares the two sexes to find men use their conversation as a type of competition or to preserve their independence. For example, men talk about their knowledge regarding sports, cars, women, exc. Meanwhile, women try to foster intimacy through communication. For instance, women often talk and relate on a personal level. Throughout Tannen's book she uses "cross-cultural communication" to describe the differences between the language of men and women. Tannen observed that, "For males, conversation is the way you negotiate your status in the group and keep people from pushing you around; you use talk to preserve your independence. Females, on the other hand, use conversation to negotiate closeness and intimacy; talk is the essence of intimacy, so being best friends means sitting and talking. For boys, activities, doing things together, are central. Just sitting and talking is not an essential part of friendship. They're friends with the boys they do things with" (Tannen 95).…
Growing up my parents raised me to always be helpful. They made me do chores and eventually I started asking them what else they needed help with after I did my chores.…
In reading Deborah Tannen’s essay “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,” I was found to believe that the main idea of this essay was the language of everyday conversation. The subject of Deborah Tannen’s essay would be in my opinion the difference in which males and females use communication skills. When it comes to men, they seem to talk more if they were sitting next to a female. Also a boys way of communicating with other boys, was not by talking, but by more of engaging in activities with them. As with females, they actually engaged in communicating. They mostly sit and talk, and tell secrets to one another.…
The way a language is used by a person to speak to one another is all that matters; they pick out their ways for a specific activity or purpose. For instance, Macaulay states that “Both men and woman will use the forms if language, registers, and styles appropriate to the activities in which they are engaged” (309). Notably, women at their natural state are straight forward to the point which they want to express; they talk in a simple manner and in some cases, they raise their voice in order to convince someone effectively. In contrast, men have a creative mind in their language usage. They always seek for new things to apply in their speech, and their manner goes along with toughness (solid voice) as in the example “Adult males on average have deeper voices than adult females because the vibrating part of the vocal cords is about a third longer in men” (Macaulay, 311). Depending on different activities, a person of either gender has to pick out an effective language usage which best suits the situation that they find themselves involving in. Otherwise, people will criticize the way you talk, whether it is professional or not.…
I have always heard that men and women are from different planets and have their own cultures, while in reality we have all grown up on the same planet and interact with each other in different ways on a daily basis. Men and women are different in many ways; they see the world through completely different perspectives. The key to understanding the differences is in the way men and women communicate. Men and women differ psychologically in the way they act, from the style in which they communicate to the way in which they attempt to influence others. These gender differences in communication and influence tactics also have implications for gender differences in communication styles; communication differences in the workplace; differences in non-verbal and verbal communication; and miscommunication between men and women. Differences in communication style between men and women are visible physically, mentally and behaviorally. These two genders are different at the way how they act, sense, think and speak. Furthermore, one of the major dissimilarity between the sexes is the way they communicate. Therefore, the major common of dissimilarity in communication affects both sexes in every perspective.…