Rating: 
Summary: You Just Don't Understand
Review: After reading this book I realized how it relates to my daily life and conversations. I agree with what Tannen says, females talk with their friends more intimately than males do. Female friends talk to each other about how they feel while males talk about topics such as sports and don't say as much. When male and female friends talk together there are many differences. Tannen makes very good points about why people act the way that they do. It was interesting to learn some of the reasons that people speak and listen the way that they do. I now know why men and women often misunderstand each other. Even though I am a teenager I still feel that I can relate to this book and what it discusses.
Rating:
Summary: You Just Don't Understand
Review: After reading this book I realized how it relates to my daily life and conversations. I agree with what Tannen says, females talk with their friends more intimately than males do. Female friends talk to each other about how they feel while males talk about topics such as sports and don't say as much. When male and female friends talk together there are many differences. Tannen makes very good points about why people act the way that they do. It was interesting to learn some of the reasons that people speak and listen the way that they do. I now know why men and women often misunderstand each other. Even though I am a teenager I still feel that I can relate to this book and what it discusses.
Rating: 
Summary: Family Issues Broken Down
Review: Communication is the greatest aspect to a good relationship. Without communication, a relationship can lack are understanding, feelings, and where a person may stand in life...towards the other person. Nevertheless, where does communication falls when it comes to family. Take for instance your oldest son has a dream he wants to pursue. With this, he feels he is confident about himself, and sure that he is capable of achieving this goal. On the other hand, you know your child is incompetent of doing this because he lacks the talent. Now you have to choose between telling the truth... letting facts be known or keeping quiet... letting him engage on this dream. Let us think about this; is it all right to lye to a person to save their feelings knowing in the end things will fall apart? Alternatively, is it ok to tell the truth in the beginning to save them from embarrassment and humiliation in the end?
Many different scenarios can take place in a family were communication becomes a problem. Whether it is telling the truth to: save embarrassment, family gossiping, family secrets, control, etc. The list of the scenarios goes on and on. However, all confrontation comes about for two reasons. One reason is one person does not know what are the message given is, but went towards the metamessage, and explodes. I know your wondering what message and metamessage are. Well, "message is the meaning of the words and sentences spoken, what everyone with a dictionary and a grammar book could figure out. Metamessage is not said- at least not in so many words- but that we garner from every aspect of context." Take this into prime example and see whether you can figure out what is the message, and the metamessage are. "Do you really need another piece of cake? Donna asks George. You bet I do, he replies, with that edge to his voice that implies, If I wasn't sure I needed it before, I am darned sure now." Now sit and think about these for a moment... ok times up. Now, can you figure out what is the message and the metamessage are? Here is the answer, the message from Donna (the sender) was she said those words because she loves George and cares about what he eats, especially when she knows it is going to hurt him. The metamessage that George (the receiver) got was her trying to tell him what he can eat, or how much of something he can eat. However, that is not the case. Based on the definitions of message and metamessage, Donna had her reasons for saying what she said, but because George was so quick to react, he missed the whole point of her stating do you need another piece.
The second reason is connection and control. "A grown daughter who is offended when her mother tells her how to improve the decoration of her home..." This is a great example of connection and control, because the mother is simply doing what she does best- giving advice. In the eyes of the daughter, it is different because the daughter felt that her mother was trying to tell her how to decorate her home. In contrast, the mother was trying to connect with her, by helping her out, and giving some decorative advice that can make her home feel more comfortable. This example helps explain this because connection and control is all about describing the forces that drive all our conversations- how we use talk to get closer to each other or put distance between us; how the words help us gain dominance or show respect. Tannen gives numerous examples on explaining connections and control, and how so many families stop communicating because of this
"I Only Say This Because I Love You" by Deborah Tannen, gives excellent examples of message and metamessage throughout her book. The book even includes the example above. Tannen gives live examples as to why talking to family can be so painful and problematic when we are all adults, with family its learning how to separate word meaning, message, from heart meaning, metamessage. With an understanding between the two, fighting amongst family members and separation would seize and desist. Even if you people talking can learn how to derive criticism (control) from giving advice (connection) problems will eventually stop. Therefore, by understanding the two concepts you are fully capable of correcting any miscommunication that comes about, by talking without hurting each other but comforting on another. Thus, coming to situations where you have to tell someone the truth, if it is going to save them hurt and embarrassment in the end, it is ok to do. Simply make sure that the message is clear, and point out the facts that you are not trying to criticize or control what they do in their life. You are simply giving advice that might make a difference in the end.
Rating:
Summary: Required Reading for Everyone!!!!!
Review: Deborah Tannen has earned the Honor of having "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation" placed along side the ONLY other book that I currently own. The other book is "The Elements of Style"; by Strunk & White. Don't get me wrong; I read incessantly, but rarely keep any of the books that I purchase or borrow. I believe the two (2) books referenced above should be required reading for every American. Period! I won't pretend to know what age would be approriate or most effective for Ms. Tannen's book, but it certainly would go a long way in solving many of today's communication problems between ALL people. I primarily base my opinion of this book on: 1)my having read it, and 2)my having learned the hard way what this book lays out for you in plain English. I managed a team of 12 Finance professionals in NYC for 10+ years; consisting of men & woman of various ages, nationalities, and religions. In time, I learned how to effectively manage such a diverse group by gaining an undrstanding of how each person interelated with everyone else. I HIGHLY recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: Required Reading for Everyone!!!!!
Review: Deborah Tannen has earned the Honor of having "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation" placed along side the ONLY other book that I currently own. The other book is "The Elements of Style"; by Strunk & White. Don't get me wrong; I read incessantly, but rarely keep any of the books that I purchase or borrow. I believe the two (2) books referenced above should be required reading for every American. Period! I won't pretend to know what age would be approriate or most effective for Ms. Tannen's book, but it certainly would go a long way in solving many of today's communication problems between ALL people. I primarily base my opinion of this book on: 1)my having read it, and 2)my having learned the hard way what this book lays out for you in plain English. I managed a team of 12 Finance professionals in NYC for 10+ years; consisting of men & woman of various ages, nationalities, and religions. In time, I learned how to effectively manage such a diverse group by gaining an undrstanding of how each person interelated with everyone else. I HIGHLY recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for anyone interested in communicating.
Review: Deborah Tannen has written an excellent book analyzing theverbal interaction between men and women. I highly recommend it toanyone. For many years I have been only generally aware of some of the symptoms she describes, mostly through personal communication problems that arose in my marriage. After reading her book, I now have a much better understanding of these challenging problems of differing perspective and I hope I can even change my reactions when these problems reoccur. I even note on pg. 201 (page numbers throughout refer to the Hardcover Edition) that the author herself, "as a result of doing this research, learned not to use machine-gun questions or cooperative overlapping with people who don't respond well -- a tangible benefit of understanding conversational style." I don't believe her book is at all one-sided. It presents examples of how some people (often women) feel they are always being interrupted and not allowed to present their views. It also describes how a male speaker, through his style, fails to get a professional group's attention or credit for bringing up a major point -- that is then later repeated by another speaker, who refers to the earlier speaker but still gets all the credit. In order for others to gain an appreciation of this book, I quote below from several selections. WHO DOES MORE OF THE TALKING, AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES? "Who talks more, then, women or men? The seemingly contradictory evidence is reconciled by the difference between what I call public and private speaking. More men feel comfortable doing 'public speaking,' while more women feel comfortable doing 'private' speaking. Another way of capturing these differences is by using the terms report-talk and rapport-talk. "For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships. Emphasis is placed on displaying similarities and matching experiences. From childhood, girls criticize peers who try to stand out or appear better than others." (pg. 76, 77) "From childhood, men learn to use talking as a way to get and keep attention. So they are more comfortable speaking in larger groups made up of people they know less well -- in the broadest sense, 'public speaking.' But even the most private situations can be approached like public speaking, more like giving a report than establishing rapport." (pg. 77) "Many men honestly do not know what women want, and women honestly do not know why men find what they wand so hard to comprehend and deliver." (pg. 81) JUDGMENTS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE TALK AND DON'T TALK. "For girls, talk is the glue that holds relationships together. Boys' relationships are held together primarily by activities: doing things together, or talking about activities such as sports or, later, politics." (pg. 85) "Women and men are inclined to understand each other in terms of their own styles because we assume we all live in the same world. [A] young man in [Thomas Fox' college] writing class noticed that his female peers refused to speak with authority. He imagined the reason to be that they feared being wrong. For him, the point was knowledge, a matter of individual ability. It did not occur to him that what they feared was not being wrong, but being offensive. For them, the point was connection: their relation to the group." (pg. 179) WHICH IS A BETTER LEARNING EXPERIENCE: BOYS PLAYING GAMES WITH COMPLEX RULES OR GIRLS HAVING VERY FEW, IF ANY, EXPLICIT RULES IN THEIR GAMES? "[I]t is not that the boys' behavior is more complex in general. Rather, boys and girls are learning to handle complexity in different arenas -- boys in terms of complex rules and activities, girls in terms of [non explicit] complex networks of relationships, and complex ways of using language to mediate those relationships." (pg. 181) WHEN DO WE LEARN TO BE DIFFERENT? "If it is fascinating to see the source of adult patterns in second-graders, it boggles the mind to see them in three-year-olds. No wonder it is hard for men and women to understand each other's point of view: We have been looking at the view from different vantage points for as long as we have been looking." (pg. 257) There is another quote on a page that I can't remember that goes something like "second-grade girls already have more in common with 10th grade girls than they do with second-grade boys." INTERRUPTIONS AND NOT GETTING AN EQUAL CHANCE TO TALK. "[I]nadvertent interruptions -- and the impression of domination -- came about because the friends had different conversational styles. I call these styles 'high considerateness' and 'high involvement,' because the former gave priority to being considerate to others by not imposing, and the latter gave priority to showing enthusiastic involvement. Some apparent interruptions occurred because high-considerateness speakers expected longer pauses between speaking turns. While they were waiting for the proper pause, the high involvement speakers got the impression they had nothing to say and filled in to avoid an uncomfortable silence." (pg. 196) THE EFFECTS OF FOREIGN CULTURES. "If cultural differences are likely to cause misjudgment in personal settings, they are certain to do so in international ones. I would wager that the much-publicized antipathy between Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev resulted from cultural differences in conversational style. According to Nancy Reagan, 'From the moment we met, she talked and talked and talked -- so much that I could barely get a word in, edgewise or otherwise.' I suspect that if anyone asked Raisa Gorbachev, she would say she'd been wondering why her American counterpart never said anything." (pg. 207) Another example of "foreign" cultures relates to Americans from different backgrounds, not only of obvious ethnic differences, but even, for example, simply from different parts of America. On page 201 Tannen points out the different backgrounds and conversational styles of Jewish New Yorkers (and many New Yorkers who are not Jewish), who "have high-involvement styles and are often perceived as interrupting in conversation with speakers from different backgrounds, such as Californians. But [on the other hand] many Californians expect shorter pauses than many midwesterners or New Englanders, so in conversations between them, the Californians end up interrupting. Just as [the author] was considered extremely polite when [she] lived in New York but was sometimes perceived as rude in California, a polite Californian was shocked and hurt to find herself accused of rudeness when she moved to Vermont." Still another example of cultural difference is that of an American tourist in Turkey trying to refuse a street merchant. "She found herself holding a stone head, and when she told him politely that she did not want it, he would not take it back. Instead, he thrust forward another one, which she also automatically accepted. Since the man would not take either head back, the only path to escape she could envision was offering to buy them. She cut his price in half and hoped he'd refuse so she could move on. Instead, he agreed to drop the price and she dropped the two heads in her tote. But as she handed him the money, he handed her a third head. ... Seeing no alternative, she paid for the third head and stalked off -- shaken and angry. When ... she showed her purchases to custom officials [at the ship, they] had her arrested and thrown into jail for trying to smuggle out a national treasure. The third head was a genuine antiquity." (pg. 281) THE BOTTOM LINE IN ALL OF TANNEN'S RESEARCH IS: "We all want, above all, to be heard -- but not merely to be heard. We want to be understood -- heard for what we think we are saying, for what we know we mean. With increased understanding of the ways women and men use language should come a decrease in frequency of the complaint 'You don't understand.' END
Rating: 
Summary: Very tendentious, difficult to read
Review: I find it unfortunate that Deborah Tannen is the foremost mind on this subject of communication differences between genders. I have observed the phenomena she wrote about in her book, but have had limited success in using the knowledge to overcome communication problems with women.
She has uncovered an important topic and made it relevant and somewhat accessible to the average interested person. Tannen deserves credit for that. However, her approach, obviously feminist (and probably some type of neo-feminism that I do not care to research or think about), taints her writing. For example, Tannen suggests that because of the way women are socialized to communicate in the United States, they might be better equipped to function and prosper in the business world. What? It would be better to say that women MIGHT be cut out for certain functions in the business world, and men for others. In the information age it's difficult to believe that those who ostensibly communicate to send and receive information (men) are less appropriate than those who communicate to establish a bond or relationship with the other party (women).
I do not recommend the book. The author should have been more scientific - every page drips with her agenda and it makes the book difficult to read. It's also filled with personal anecdotes, perhaps meant to make the book more accessible, but it disappointingly detracts from the social science she did. econ
Rating:
Summary: If you're from Mars, this book may need translation
Review: John Gray did the male gender no favors by characterizing us guys as "from Mars". Fortunately, Deborah Tannen knows better. Despite her male detractors, who usually find fault with what they consider overindulgence of the more estrogen-laden of our species, Dr. Tannen strives (and succeeds) at maintaining a refreshing academic distance from a strong gender bias in this seminal work. Her anecdotal examples of male and female communication styles are convincing and rub no ones noses in their own verbal messes. Having found impenetrable more than one woman's labyrinth of words and feelings, it was quite comforting to find from a woman a sympathetic spirit. If you have tried reading "Men Are From Mars..." and were put off by the premise, "You Just Don't Understand" may provide a welcome alternative in the male/female communication blues.
Rating:
Summary: Virtually the only coherent book on this topic
Review: Look, gender-based communication style doesn't explain EVERY behavioral difference between a man and a woman, and certainly Tannen has biases as an author, but taken for what it is, it's exceptional.
There are enough "what he said, what she heard" jokes going around on the internet that it's obvious that most people pick up on a difference in communication that's gender-based. What Tannen has done is tied this back into a cultural worldview, the culture of men and the culture of women, and talks about how these are and how these interact.
Since she wrote this, she's directly applied the concepts to the business world in a different book. She also did a parenting book. Personally, I like this one the best.
It's a quick read and it's very interesting. The examples are great and, unless you never deal with adults or children of the opposite gender on a 1:1 basis, you really should give it a peek.
Rating:
Summary: Conversation Matters!
Review: The communication barrier that exists between men and women is explored in the book, You Just Don't Understand - Women and Men in Conversation. Linguist, Deborah Tannen, takes a look at various situations that women and men, girls and boys, encounter on a daily basis. Tannen believes that our difference in conversation stems from the way that we are raised as children. The values that society places on gender roles are apparent when it comes to communication style. Tannen wants her readers to be able "to sort out differences based on conversational style." The real-life circumstances that Tannen incorporates into the book followed by a detailed explanation of how the incident can be interpreted, allows readers to examine their own lifestyle and possibly make beneficial changes. Tannnen's goal is help people make sense of the differences that surround them. She says, "We all want, above all, to be heard - but not merely to be heard. We want to be understood."
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