Quote

[T]he seeds of [the Argument Culture] can be found our classrooms, where a teacher will introduce an article or an idea . . . setting up debates where people learn not to listen to each other because they're so busy trying to win the debate.

Deborah Tannen

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Deborah Tannen
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: June 7
Linguist
Professor
University Teacher
Brooklyn
New York
Deborah Frances Tannen
Trying
Listen
Classroom
People
Teacher
Articles
Winning
Settings
Idea
Seeds
Classrooms
Learn
Debate
Debates
Culture
Setting
Introduce
Found
Busy
Article
Ideas
Argument
Introducing

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The key to conversation at work is flexibility and understanding how what you say might be perceived by others.
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In dialogue, there is opposition, yes, but no head-on collision. Smashing heads does not open minds.
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Relationships are made of talk - and talk is for girls and women.
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When those closest to us respond to events differently than we do, when they seem to see the same scene as part of a different play, when they say things that we could not imagine saying in the same circumstances, the ground on which we stand seems to tremble and our footing is suddenly unsure.
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The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.
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any criticism heard secondhand sounds worse than it would face to face. Words spoken out of our presence strike us as more powerful, just as people we know only by reputation seem larger than life.
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All communication is more or less cross-cultural. We learn to use language as we grow up, and growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, even just being male or female - all result in different ways of talking.
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Like most men, my father is interested in action. And this is why he disappoints my mother when she tells him she doesn't feel well and he offers to take her to the doctor. He is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.
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In an ongoing relationship, each current criticism packs the punches of all the others that have gone before.
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When people realize that in the long run you may be turning off the audiences more, even though they will look temporarily--in the end they turn away, we really need to develop other metaphors and not talk about two sides, but talk about all sides.
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It can be the best of relationships and the worst of relationships - often at the same time. The bond between a mother and daughter is one of the strongest, but it's also among the most complicated.
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Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.
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To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It's a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.
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All conversation, in addition to whatever else it does, displays, and asks for recognition of, our competence.
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Though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and men on the second. It is as if their lifeblood ran in different directions.
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Treating people the same is not equal treatment if they are not the same.
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Words can be like weapons of destruction: It takes so much effort, and the cooperation of so many people, to build something - and so little effort of so few to tear it down.
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The chivalrous man who holds a door open or signals a woman to go ahead of him when he's driving is negotiating both status and connection.
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Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.
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Critiquing relieves you of the responsibility of doing integrative thinking.
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