Report on Deborah Tannen -Communication differences

Deborah Tannen: Why Won’t He Talk To Me?
Robert Scott(bobscott18@yahoo.com)
English 111: Methods of Written Communication
University of Alaska, Anchorage
Professor Robin Crittenden
February 20, 2003
Deborah Tannen: Why Won’t He Talk To Me?
In an excerpt from her 1991 book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, Georgetown University linguistics professor Deborah Tannen states that she believes men and women talk differently because they are raised in “something like two different cultures: a male culture from which young men learn to speak like men and a female culture in which young women learn to speak like women.” She examines the stereotype that women talk too much, but she relates that in study after study conducted on this subject, it has been found that men are actually doing most of the talking. Tannen reports that “the seemingly contradictory evidence is reconciled by the difference between what I call public and private speaking.” More ...