American - Sociologist | June 7, 1945 -
My writing is about connecting ways of talking to human relationships. My purpose is to show that linguistics has something to offer in understanding and improving relationships.
Deborah Tannen
PurposeWritingUnderstandingTalking
There is more excitement, more amazement when a first is born. No subsequent babies can have that impact.
ImpactBornExcitementMoreFirst
The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.
RelationshipMistakeConversationWay
A sister is someone who owns part of what you own: a house, perhaps, or a less tangible legacy, like memories of your childhood and the experience of your family.
FamilyMemoriesExperienceChildhood
If women talk in ways expected of them or project a feminine demeanor, it's seen as weak. But if they talk in ways associated with men or bosses, then they're seen as too aggressive. Whatever they do violates one or the other expectation: either you're not talking as you should as a woman or as boss.
WomenMenWomanBossTalkingYou
Where the daughter sees power, the mother feels powerless. Daughters and mothers, I found, both overestimate the other's power - and underestimate their own.
MotherDaughterPowerUnderestimate
Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.
CommunicationAloneWorldSurvive
The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate.
ResultIntentionAlwaysEffect
I'm a linguist. I study how people talk to each other and how the ways we talk affect our relationships.
PeopleRelationshipsTalkStudyOur
I was one of those daughters who saw my mother as my enemy when I was a teen.
MotherTeenEnemySawWhoDaughters
For girls and women, talk is the glue that holds a relationship together - and the explosive that can blow it apart. That's why you can think you're having a perfectly amiable chat, then suddenly find yourself wounded by the shrapnel from an exploded conversation.
WomenRelationshipTogetherYourself
I believe the switch from 'lady' to 'woman' was part of the women's movement. 'Lady' was a euphemism for 'woman,' and that was one reason that we wanted to move away from it.
WomenWomanBelieveLadyMovement
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