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On Deborah Tannen and the Profound Power of Language

Jane Carter7/03/16
Women: what do they want?
That’s a question that’s plagued not only hundreds of clueless husbands and boyfriends on Valentine’s Day, anniversaries, or other celebrations.
Yet, why is that all men seem to be so clueless when it comes to understanding half of the earth’s population?
Let psychologist, linguist, and Georgetown professor Deborah Tannen enlighten you: it’s all in your words.
The writer of bestsellers with catchy, fun titles such as You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and That’s Not what I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships– both works read across the country in the eighties and nineties by millions of frustrated middle-aged mothers- has long stated that women and men are two tribes headed for war. Men and women will never be able to understand each other, and it’s all because of our language and conversational style, says Tannen.
Men see language as a way of asserting dominance, Tannen writes, whereas women simply see it as a way of confirming ideas: never creating their own, obviously. Women are only capable of merely asserting the thoughts of others. Women see language as a means of empathy and providing emotional support, whereas strong, independent men only ever use their language to solve real problems. Men are only concerned with facts; we all know women are far too emotional to deal with hard-core knowledge. How could we, anyhow, when all we ever do is use our language to communicate our feelings or converse with others about their own feelings? It is also a well-known fact that men use imperatives, Tannen says, whereas women use hidden directives; or, I mean, I guess they could, maybe.
But, what does this mean? Does gender inequality stem from grammar and syntax? Can we emotional women, with our hidden directives, blame ourselves and our language for the patriarchy?
Tannen might be shouting ‘Yes! Look at the transcripts! I have evidence!‘, and she might very well be true. Gender differences do affect language, though what came first, the language or the patriarchy?
Let us first deconstruct gender: it is merely a construct.
We live in a world where we colour-code our children in desperation to keep the gender binary system going, and we divide everything according to gender: cats are feminine, dogs are masculine, toy cars are for boys, and dolls are for girls. The division carries on into stereotypes: women are social, men are commanding, girls are emotional, boys are rational.

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From Sex and the City to What Women Want, these stereotypes are reflected in the media and broadcasted left, right, and centre. Men and women are shown to be polar opposites, completely unable to understand each other, and it’s all because of their language. Middle-aged women speak like prepubescent teenage girls, using words such as sort of or the ever-present filler like: minor interjections that show women are active listeners, says Tannen, and caring, domestic, beings. Men- if they talk to each other at all- are commanding and avoid confronting their feelings because they are, after all, far too driven by problem-solving and real problems, not their miniscule emotions.
The amount of times I have seen or heard married couples bicker and argue on televised sitcoms is ridiculous, and it’s the same pattern every time: men don’t understand what women are saying, and women can’t seem to comprehend what men mean. Be it for comedic purpose or otherwise, these stereotypes and seemingly innate differences in language, or conversational styles as Tannen puts it, were drilled inside of all of our heads from a very young age, and the effect is momentous.
The classic example is the exchange of ‘What’s wrong?‘ ‘Nothing‘. Picture the scene: a married couple utters those phrases. Who asks the question, and who answers it?
I can guarantee you three things. Firstly, you pictured a man and woman. Secondly, you imagined the woman answering. Thirdly, she probably didn’t have a very nice tone of voice.
Am I a magician, really good at guessing, or is there more to the issue than it seems?
The phrase nothing haunts millions of married men, as those two words are built to never truly mean nothing because, as Tannen has showed us, women’s speech is loaded with complex meaning, ready to be enciphered by men’s rational brains, yet it seems men are never quite able to do so, perhaps because nothing simply means nothing; nothing more and nothing less, despite the media often portraying quite the opposite.
The media creates these situations of miscommunication between men and women. Although vaguely based on reality, one can hardly argue that they accurately depict this wonderfully complex world we live in. Generalisation is a dangerous thing, and yet, Tannen devises equally generalised assumptions and psychological theories to explain this division of language broadcasted in the media and transferred to real life.
To answer the previous question I asked, the patriarchy came first, and Tannen’s work did nothing but compose a deeper division between men and women that the media was already keen on creating.
We aren’t two tribes heading for war. Men aren’t from Mars, and women aren’t from Venus. Perhaps someone should explain to Mrs. Tannen that there are extra-terrestrial forms of life. We all are, in fact, from planet Earth; our lovely home with its wonderful entrenched sexism.
Comments
Marline | 7.03.2016
“Tannen’s work did nothing but compose a deeper division between men and women.”
What?! I’m pretty sure Tannen isn’t some weirdo on Reddit… Tannen isn’t a man-hater, and she isn’t some woman-hater either, she’s just a psychologist!!!
Disappointing article, you’ve totally over-analysed her lol
JSev | 7.03.2016
i take AP Psych and her work is SO sexist!! try READING it it’s horrible lmao
Jessica L. | 8.03.2016
agree with you!!! wish we didn’t use “psychology” as “evidence” for sexism…. makes me sad to think people believe her…  media brainwashed us…..