All communication is more or less cross-cultural. We learn to use language as we grow up, and growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, even just being male or female - all result in different ways of talking.

Deborah Tannen

Categorized in : Country Religious Growing Up

The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.

Deborah Tannen

communication mistake believe

Part of the reason images of women in positions of authority are marked by their gender is that the very notion of authority is associated with maleness.

Deborah Tannen

gender authority reason

Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.

Deborah Tannen

cogs independence communication

Male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication

Deborah Tannen

males female communication

Many women feel it is natural to consult with their partners at every turn, while many men automatically make more decisions without consulting their partners.

Deborah Tannen

decision natural men

We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has

Deborah Tannen

realizing language looks

The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.

Deborah Tannen

party ideas thinking

The desire for freedom and independence becomes more of an issue for many men in relationships, whereas interdependence and connection become more of an issue for many women.

Deborah Tannen

independence issues men

For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.

Deborah Tannen

connections language way

Many men honestly do not know what women want, and women honestly do not know why men find what they want so hard to comprehend and deliver.

Deborah Tannen

understanding want men

More men feel comfortable doing "public speaking," while more women feel comfortable doing "private" speaking.

Deborah Tannen

public-speaking feels men

Cooperation isn't the absence of conflict but a means of managing conflict.

Deborah Tannen

cooperation conflict mean

Treating people the same is not equal treatment if they are not the same.

Deborah Tannen

equal-treatment ifs people

Words can be like weapons of destruction: It takes so much effort, and the cooperation of so many people, to build something - and so little effort of so few to tear it down.

Deborah Tannen

effort tears people

Like most men, my father is interested in action. And this is why he disappoints my mother when she tells him she doesn't feel well and he offers to take her to the doctor. He is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.

Deborah Tannen

mother men father

To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It's a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.

Deborah Tannen

mean people ideas

If women are often frustrated because men do not respond to their troubles by offering matching troubles, men are often frustrated because women do.

Deborah Tannen

frustration offering men

It can be the best of relationships and the worst of relationships - often at the same time. The bond between a mother and daughter is one of the strongest, but it's also among the most complicated.

Deborah Tannen

daughter complicated mother

We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups.

Deborah Tannen

diversity unique justice

To say anything about women and men without marking oneself as either feminist or anti-feminist, male-basher or apologist for men seems as impossible for a woman as trying to get dressed in the morning without inviting interpretations of her character. Sitting at the conference table musing on these matters, I felt sad to think that we women didn't have the freedom to be unmarked that the men sitting next to us had. Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you're a woman, you can't, because there is no unmarked woman.

Deborah Tannen

morning character men