The last part of the book talks about how something like the way a person sits and what he or she does during a conversation can cause misunderstandings.
Tannen looks into many experiments conducted by other linguists where they have pairs of people of the same gender and of the same age talk in a room while being videotaped.
First, the pair of second grade boys were restless, they were looking for things to do, and they were telling jokes and mocking the adult who took them to the room and told them to talk about "something serious". The second grade girls, however, were the complete opposite : they were sitting still and talking about what they were supposed to be talking about. Tannen explains that this difference goes back to the way boys and girls see the world: boys see the world as a constant competition for status which was why they were doing things like playing around and mocking the adults, girls see the world as a constant struggle to maintain equality and intimacy which was why their conversation was full of words that reassure each other that they are not the only ones experiencing a problem (and they did not play around like the boys because they do not gain much intimacy/equality from it).
The next group observed were pairs of sixth graders . Although the boys do not jump around and stuff like the second graders, they still squirm and move around their chairs constantly and do not feel comfortable. The boys also switch topics constantly. They never sit facing each other and rarely made eye contact; they were looking everywhere in the room except at each other. The girls on the other hand, are almost like their second grade counterparts: they sit still and look comfortable, they talk about one topic and continually reinforces and reassures each other, and they sit facing each other, making eye contact many times.
The next group to be videotaped were tenth graders. The pair of boys were like the sixth graders: they do not sit facing each other and they rarely look at each other, the only difference is that they are completely slumped on the chairs they were sitting on. However, unlike the previous groups, the tenth grader boys talked about person things. As for the girls, they are almost identical to their sixth grade counterparts.
The last group observed was made up of twenty-five year old adults. The women were mostly like their younger counterparts, only this time the struggle to maintain equality and intimacy and avoid conflict is a bit harder.
The theory that Tannen develops from watching the videos of these conversations is that the men avoid sitting face to face or making eye contact because it is like a "hostile action, a display of threat (269)". They feel comfortable talking to each other while not facing each other at all. Their conversations can be either impersonal and/or constantly changing topics because they dismiss each other's problems as something that is not as bad as they think it is. Women, on the other hand, face each other while talking because it establishes connection between them. They talk about whatever is on their minds and personal things and they support/reinforce/reassure each other's comments and feelings in conversations because sharing everything means that they are being intimate.
The conflict between the sexes arise when the men and the women judge each other in terms of their own "genderlect". The men and boys do not face each other and they are comfortable with that because it fits into their own logic, but women may interpret this as a lack of interest in the conversation because she assumes that facing each other = good. The men might also see direct eye contact as a sign of flirting, which may be a bad thing for one or both of them. Also, Women may see the constant dismissing of problems as a sign of not caring while the man sees it as normal, and men can see the reassuring words of women as a sign of being subordinated while women see it as normal. Misunderstandings like these can cause conflicts to spiral out of control and damage the relationships between the people.
The book concludes that the best way to avoid misunderstandings or at least minimize the damage caused by it is to understand how both genders think and speak. It also helps to be a little more like the other gender when talking. More importantly, one must say that he/she must do the changing, not their partners.
There are always misunderstandings between a male and a female. The voice projection or choice of words can cause tension between two people. It can be even worse if it's BOTH at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI think you're book goes (psyhcologically)in depth. Women and men judge when they speak. Depending on the situation, the way they speak to each other varies. Feelings also get in the way as to how we speak to each other.
Take us, for example, we speak to each other in a different wway than i would speak to a boyfriend or my father. We respect each other on a level where we don't say much. We're classmates, and we speak to each other like any other classmate should.
Or you as a guy, a gentlemen, wouldn't curse at me like you would say if you were hanging around with your friends.