Deborah Tannen Analysis

Communication is the means of connection between people or places, it’s an easy every day use. Most of us get into the habit of talking a specific way towards females and males, although it does differ depending on who you are you’d be surprised on how often it actually happens. This habit starts very early on, way back to grade school the way we interact with people then and the social interaction we have now correlate with habits that start early on in life. Another thing is the way you’re brought up and your culture some may be raised differently or some may have more interaction with females than males and vice versa. One author that shows interest in this topic is Deborah Tannen, she is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. She wrote an excerpt called, “Why Can’t He Hear What I’m Saying?” in this she discusses her relationship with her husband and how their relationship lacked communication which lead to a divorce. In this excerpt she hits a lot of essential points in gender communication. Overall, depending on how and where you grow up greatly effects the way you communicate with the opposite sex whether it’s realized or not.

Gender has very much to do with the way communicate.

Male’s tend to be straight-forward and get to the point quite fast where as woman use different silent tactics and “clues” to communicate. Another thing is woman tend to want to talk and share their feelings either with another female or a significant other. Men however, don’t see any point in discussing feelings and tend to keep to themselves most of the time. When woman get mad the tend to be mad for quite some time as well as having that argument affect their whole relationship where as men have an argument and end up getting over it fairly fast and move on. All these different thing contributing to how men and woman are so different in the way we communicate, its amazing we even get along at

all!
In Deborah Tannen’s, “Why Can’t He Hear What I’m Saying?” she discusses the differences when meeting someone you automatically connect with versus someone you don’t. She gives the example of when she went to a seminar and Professor Robin Lakoff was speaking he talked about gender roles in communication. Tanner discusses how Professor Lakoff says, “how people prefer not to say exactly what they mean because they’re concerned not only with the ideas they’re expressing but also with the effect their words will have on those they’re talking to.” Which I think is entirely correct, I myself know from experience the filter I put on my mouth when talking to the opposite sex. For Tannen it then clicked she realized what had been going on in her marriage. She then gives her readers a background on how little girls tend to gravitate towards small groups or even just one best friend and within that small group or best friend there are secrets and if you tell them, you can basically day goodbye to those friends. However, little boys tend to gravitate towards larger groups, always outside spending their time outside and playing rather than talking. In which talking or communicating is what seems to be the problem. Now when they grow up they then tend to carry on those same skills created when they first starting using those communication skills.
Another huge contributing factor is, genetics. Woman and men have different hormones, woman have oxytocin where as men have testosterone. John Gray author of Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus says, “Women have higher levels of oxytocin, the hormone that promotes a feeling of connectedness—as in "we did this together," "I have a team that supports me." Men, on the other hand, experience a tremendous release of testosterone when they take credit for something, so naturally want to be the stars of the show.” Clearly something we may of not even thought about pertains to the way we communicate, something in which we have zero control over.
Culture is another thing, culture’s provide people with ways of thinking--ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting the world (Conflict Research Consortium). With all these different things to take into consideration, someones communication skills in Europe are different than to those in California. Also with different languages certain words can mean different things therefore changing the interpretation, which will tie into the way they communicate. Different experiences when they were growing up also affects peoples communication. As with growing up everyone differs you could be part of the few that do talk to the opposite sex at a younger age therefore gaining the knowledge on how to communicate with them early on.
To conclude men and woman are very different in the way they communicate. Not only does gender take part in this put other factors as well such as, culture, genetics, and the way you were brought up. It is very difficult to get the whole female and male communicating to a well and do able circumstance because each person believes he/she is correct. It is also difficult coming to the realization that maybe you are wrong or you interpreted the what your significant other or someone from the opposite sex had said. Taking all these things into consideration, maybe being a bit more patient or understanding would help.