Poki Hsiao's Essay

Sex, Lies, and Conversation: Essay

From this article, Deborah Tannen generalized comparison rather than discussed the impact of difference cultures on communication. She explained the different ways of communication between men and women. In childhood we can probably see these systematic differences between different genders. Little girls, create and maintain friendships by exchanging secrets; similarly women regard conversation as the cornerstone of friendship. And boys are based less on talking, more on doing things together, so do men. Boys’ groups are more hierarchical, so this may make women think men don’t listen to them. But some men really don’t like to listen because extensive listening in a conversation makes them feel demeaning, like a child listening to adults or an employee to a boss.

But often when women tell men, “you aren’t listening,” and the men protest, “I am,” the men are right. The first reason is that men and women take different physical positions. The girls and women faced each other directly. But boys and men seldom do this way. And the second reason is their topics. The girls tended to talk at length about one topic, but the boys tended to jump from topic to topic. The third reason is that women are used to making more listener noise, such as “mhm,” ”uhuh,” and “yeah,“ to show “I am with you”. But men more often give silent attention, because men interpret a steam of listener noise as overreaction or impatience. Women often overlap and finish each other’s sentences but men perceive this as interruption, intrusion and lack of attention. These habits that give women the impression men aren’t listening. When most women tell problems or secrets to their spouse, they just want to get agreement and support. But men think they should point out the other side of an argument to women.

Besides those Tannen mentions, the difference in the conversational practices of men and women is that women like to express their thoughts indirectly but men use a more direct way to talk and think. For example: If a woman asks a man “are you thirsty?”, the literal meaning of the sentence is the woman wants to know if the man is thirsty or not, and the man also thinks so. But the real meaning of the sentence the woman wants to express is that she is thirsty, and she wants the man to take a glass of water for her. This example I mentioned showed that the way men and women think and talk is very different, and therefore the misunderstanding will happen.

And in the end, Tannen provides the solution of the problems. That is we need cross-cultural communication understanding. It’s not a matter of who’s right or wrong; it’s a matter of understanding and accepting. In our daily life, obviously a lot of conflicts occurred because of the differences without realizing and acceptance by others. If we always stand one point to evaluate others business, conflicts and misunderstanding will happen. The more men and women can understand their differences, the more they will do to please and appease their partners.