You Just Don't Understand

Women and Men in Conversation

Deborah Tannen

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English

Virago
14 March 1996

Sociolinguistics; Gender studies, gender groups; Gender studies: women; Health & Self-Help

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.

By: Deborah Tannen
Imprint: Virago
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 230g
ISBN: 9781853814716
ISBN 10: 1853814717
Pages: 330
Publication Date: 14 March 1996
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Best-selling author Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She has also been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princetown University.

Reviews for You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

This is a detailed analysis of the mire of crossed communication between men and women, by a US professor of linguistics. Behind all the cliches, the sexes really do speak different languages. You Just Don't Understand is full of pleasing examples that most of us can recognize: lost in a strange town, a woman's immediate instinct is to ask for directions, men will do almost anything to avoid asking for help. Women play 'do you like me?' while men play 'do you respect me?'. Men worry about persuading, women about offending; she needs rapport, he craves self-display. Misunderstandings can be destructive: women may find it easier to leave than to put up serious opposition; men may withdraw or fight rather than compromise. Tannen does not apportion blame - it's not a question of women being right and men wrong; it's how we are all brought up, something we absorb from society. Professor Tannen explains that both can retain their style, while learning to interpret and understand the way the other thinks. There is something very satisfying in having it all examined and laid out before us; it is useful as well as very entertaining. (Kirkus UK)