When I wrote You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation I didn’t know that what everyone would respond to most strongly is the question, “Why don’t men like to stop and ask for directions?” (Before the book was published, no one talked about this gender difference; as a result of the book, it is now the ubiquitous subject of jokes, cartoons, skits, greeting cards, and casual conversations.) The answer to this question will be revealed in the lectures that follow, as it captures the essence of what this course will address: the patterns that tend to distinguish how men and women use language in their everyday lives, and the consequences of these differences (as well as similarities) for conversations and relationships between women and men. My goal in this series, in addition to illuminating the patterns of women’s and men’s uses of language, is to enhance understanding of how language works in everyday life. I am told by students who have taken my courses that this understanding helps them in their everyday lives, as every aspect of our lives involves talking to people of the other sex-in our personal relationships, our families, at work, and in trying to get just about anything done. My research on cross-gender communication grew out of my linguistic research on how people use language in conversation. I was invited to take part in a research project organized by a psychologist, Bruce Dorval, that was funded by the Social Science Research Council. We examined videotapes of children talking to their best friends across a range of ages. In looking at Dorval’s videotapes, I noticed a pattern of physical orientation: At every age, girls and women sat face to face and looked directly at each other when they talked, whereas boys and men sat at angles, or parallel, and looked around the room. Seeing this pattern span such a range of ages is what prompted me to think of cross-gender communication as cross-cultural.

The following series of lectures draws on linguistics, or the scientific study of language, to show the many ways in which language has a profound effect upon human relationships. These lectures address the various aspects and implications of what Professor Tannen calls ‘conversational style.’ It also looks at the dynamics of specific situations such as the workplace and classroom where the role of conversational style is of particular importance. A person’s conversational style includes far more than the words that he or she speaks. Each conversation is composed of contextual cues, unspoken messages, body language, and the rhythms of speech. For the most part, people communicate without a conscious focus on the subtleties of language. Through this course, the complexities of language, and all that language entails, will become more apparent. A better understanding of language, of how we communicate, and of how our ways of communicating differ based on who we are talking to should lead not only to a better understanding of ourselves and of those with whom we have relationships, but should also lead to improved communication. Our language shapes our lives in numerous, complex ways. These lectures help us to make sense of our language and will help to improve our relationships with friends, spouses, and coworkers.

A #1 New York Times bestselling author traces her father’s life from turn-of-the-century Warsaw to New York City in an intimate memoir about family, memory, and the stories we tell.

“An accomplished, clear-eyed, and affecting memoir about a man who is at once ordinary and extraordinary.”—Forward

Long before she was the acclaimed author of a groundbreaking book about women and men, praised by Oliver Sacks for having “a novelist’s ear for the way people speak,” Deborah Tannen was a girl who adored her father. Though he was often absent during her childhood, she was profoundly influenced by his gift for writing and storytelling. As she grew up and he grew older, she spent countless hours recording conversations with her father for the account of his life she had promised him she’d write. But when he hands Tannen journals he kept in his youth, and she discovers letters he saved from a woman he might have married instead of her mother, she is forced to rethink her assumptions about her father’s life and her parents’ marriage. 

In this memoir, Tannen embarks on the poignant, yet perilous, quest to piece together the puzzle of her father’s life. Beginning with his astonishingly vivid memories of the Hasidic community in Warsaw, where he was born in 1908, she traces his journey: from arriving in New York City in 1920 to quitting high school at fourteen to support his mother and sister, through a vast array of jobs, including prison guard and gun-toting alcohol tax inspector, to eventually establishing the largest workers’ compensation law practice in New York and running for Congress. As Tannen comes to better understand her father’s—and her own—relationship to Judaism, she uncovers aspects of his life she would never have imagined.

Finding My Father is a memoir of Eli Tannen’s life and the ways in which it reflects the near century that he lived. Even more than that, it’s an unflinching account of a daughter’s struggle to see her father clearly, to know him more deeply, and to find a more truthful story about her family and herself.

Why does talk in families so often go in circles, leaving us tied up in knots? Linguist Deborah Tannen reveals why talking to family members is so often painful and problematic — even when we’re all adults.
Searching for signs of acceptance and belonging, we find signs of disapproval and rejection. Why do the seeds of family love so often yield a harvest of criticism and judgment? In I Only Say This Because I Love You, Tannen shows how important it is, in family talk, to learn to separate word meanings, or messages, from heart meanings, or metamessages — unstated but powerful meanings that come from the history of our relationships and the way things are said.
Presenting real conversations from people’s lives, Tannen explores what is actually going on in family talk, including how family conversations must balance the longing for connection with the desire for control, as we struggle to be close without giving up our freedom.
This eye-opening audiobook explains why grown women so often feel criticized by their mothers — and why mothers feel they can’t open their mouths around their grown daughters, why growing up male or female, or as an older or younger sibling, results in different experiences of family that persist throughout our lives. BY helping us to understand and redefine family talk, Tannen provides the tools to improve relationships with family members of every age.

Why does talk in families so often go in circles, leaving us tied up in knots? Linguist Deborah Tannen reveals why talking to family members is so often painful and problematic — even when we’re all adults.

Searching for signs of acceptance and belonging, we find signs of disapproval and rejection. Why do the seeds of family love so often yield a harvest of criticism and judgment? In I Only Say This Because I Love You, Tannen shows how important it is, in family talk, to learn to separate word meanings, or messages, from heart meanings, or metamessages — unstated but powerful meanings that come from the history of our relationships and the way things are said.

Presenting real conversations from people’s lives, Tannen explores what is actually going on in family talk, including how family conversations must balance the longing for connection with the desire for control, as we struggle to be close without giving up our freedom.

This eye-opening audiobook explains why grown women so often feel criticized by their mothers — and why mothers feel they can’t open their mouths around their grown daughters, why growing up male or female, or as an older or younger sibling, results in different experiences of family that persist throughout our lives. BY helping us to understand and redefine family talk, Tannen provides the tools to improve relationships with family members of every age.

Are your words working for you?

You say something at a meeting and it is ignored; then when someone else says the same thing, everyone embraces it as a marvelous idea. You devote yourself to a project, but don’t get credit for the results. You give what you think are clear instructions, but the job is not done, or done wrong. Sometimes it seems you are not being heard, not getting credit for your efforts, not getting ahead as fast as you should.

Now, Deborah Tannen brings to the workplace the same voice, eye, and insight that made That’s Not What I Meant! and You Just Don’t Understand bestselling classics. In Talking From 9 to 5, she explores the special world of work — where we spend countless hours with people we may not understand or even like, and where the way we talk determines not only how we get the job done, but how we are evaluated for our efforts. Offering powerful new ways of understanding what happens in the workplace, from the simplest exchanges to the complex contemporary issues of the glass ceiling, Tannen explains a variety of conversational styles and reveals how each of us can develop the flexibility and understanding we need.

Since the publication of You Just Don’t Understand, Tannen has been told over and over, “Your book saved my marriage.” Talking From 9 to 5 will have the same dramatic impact on those who are struggling with co-workers, jobs, and companies, and will help entire companies as well as individual women and men thrive in a working world made up of increasingly diverse workforces and ever-more competitive markets.

You know the feeling: You thought you said exactly what you wanted to, but somehow a different message comes across. You end up feeling misunderstood…and the relationship that you’re building — at home, on the job, on a date, or in an interview — slips a little further out of your control.
Talk is the key to any relationship and conversational style is the key to any conversation. In That’s Not What I Meant!, Dr. Tannen helps you recognize your own conversational style and understand the styles of others.
Whether you are dealing with a person who’s too quiet or someone who’s a conversational bulldozer, learning to understand conversational style will help you deal with any situation. Through this understanding, you can prevent small differences from sparking big arguments, really hear what was said — and what wasn’t.
That’s Not What I Meant! will give you the tools to save any conversation — or relationship.

Deborah Tannen’s #1 bestseller revolutionized the way men and women talk — and listen — to each other — at home, at work, and wherever the communication gap between the sexes can lead to troublesome misunderstandings. The problem dates back to childhood, when boys and girls learn to use language in distinctly different ways; years later, their adult efforts to talk often place them at cross purposes — even when both are sincerely trying to communicate.
Dr. Tannen illustrates how the best intentions can go painfully awry between spouses, family members, co-workers and friends, With You Just Don’t Understand, you’ll recognize yourself and your own efforts to be understood — and gain valuable insight to help you communicate better than ever before.

Deborah Tannen’s #1 bestseller revolutionized the way men and women talk — and listen — to each other — at home, at work, and wherever the communication gap between the sexes can lead to troublesome misunderstandings. The problem dates back to childhood, when boys and girls learn to use language in distinctly different ways; years later, their adult efforts to talk often place them at cross purposes — even when both are sincerely trying to communicate.
Dr. Tannen illustrates how the best intentions can go painfully awry between spouses, family members, co-workers and friends, With You Just Don’t Understand, you’ll recognize yourself and your own efforts to be understood — and gain valuable insight to help you communicate better than ever before.

Dr. Deborah Tannen, New York Times bestselling author of the blockbuster hits You Just Don’t Understand and You’re Wearing THAT? delivers the last word on sisters.Communications expert Dr. Deborah Tannen turns her witty and wise eye to sisters as she shares insights, anecdotes, and practical solutions to help us understand the special gifts and strains of sister relationships.Sisters can be mirrors in which we see ourselves, yardsticks by which we measure our lives-or everything we can’t be, because she got there first. Sisters are inevitably in competition, even as they are fellow travelers on the same road. And how sisters communication-“Sisterspeak”-can be straight talk, close and supportive, or talk that keeps you in your place.In You Were Always Mom’s Favorite, Tannen helps sisters everywhere translate “Sisterspeak” to navigate one of the most powerful and precious human relationships.

This warm, wise exploration of female friendship from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of You Just Don’t Understand will help women lean into these powerful relationships.

A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK • “Celebrates friendship in its frustrations and its rewards and, above all, its wonderful complexity.”—The Atlantic

Best friend, old friend, good friend, bff, college roommate, neighbor, workplace confidante: Women’s friendships are a lifeline in times of trouble and a support system for daily life. A friend can be like a sister, daughter, mother, mentor, therapist, or confessor—or she can be all of these at once. She’s seen you at your worst and celebrates you at your best. Figuring out what it means to be friends is, in the end, no less than figuring out how we connect to other people.

In this illuminating and validating new book, #1 New York Times bestselling author Deborah Tannen deconstructs the ways women friends talk and how those ways can bring friends closer or pull them apart. From casual chatting to intimate confiding, from talking about problems to telling what you had for dinner, Tannen uncovers the patterns of communication and miscommunication that affect friendships at different points in our lives. She shows how even the best of friends—with the best intentions—can say the wrong thing, and how words can repair the damage done by words. Through Tannen’s signature insight, humor, and ability to present pitch-perfect real-life dialogue, readers will see themselves and their friendships on every page. The book explains

• the power of women friends who show empathy, give advice—or just listen
• how women use talk to connect to friends—and to subtly compete
• how “Fear of Being Left Out” and “Fear of Getting Kicked Out” can haunt women’s friendships
• how social media is reshaping communication and relationships

Drawing on interviews with eighty women of diverse backgrounds, ranging in age from nine to ninety-seven, You’re the Only One I Can Tell gets to the heart of women’s friendships—how they work or fail, how they help or hurt, and how we can make them better.

“At a time when the messages we give and get have so many more ways to be misconstrued and potentially damaging, a book that takes apart our language becomes almost vital to our survival as friends.”—The Washington Post

Deborah Tannen’s #1 New York Times bestseller You Just Don’t Understand revolutionized communication between women and men. Now, in her most provocative and engaging book to date, she takes on what is potentially the most fraught and passionate connection of women’s lives: the mother-daughter relationship.
It was Tannen who first showed us that men and women speak different languages. Mothers and daughters speak the same language–but still often misunderstand each other, as they struggle to find the right balance between closeness and independence. Both mothers and daughters want to be seen for who they are, but tend to see the other as falling short of who she should be. Each overestimates the other’s power and underestimates her own.
Why do daughters complain that their mothers always criticize, while mothers feel hurt that their daughters shut them out? Why do mothers and daughters critique each other on the Big Three–hair, clothes, and weight–while longing for approval and understanding? And why do they scrutinize each other for reflections of themselves?
Deborah Tannen answers these and many other questions as she explains why a remark that would be harmless coming from anyone else can cause an explosion when it comes from your mother or your daughter. She examines every aspect of this complex dynamic, from the dark side that can shadow a woman throughout her life, to the new technologies like e-mail and instant messaging that are transforming mother-daughter communication. Most important, she helps mothers and daughters understand each other, the key to improving their relationship.
With groundbreaking insights, pitch-perfect dialogues, and deeply moving memories of her own mother, Tannen untangles the knots daughters and mothers can get tied up in. Readers will appreciate Tannen’s humor as they see themselves on every page and come away with real hope for breaking down barriers and opening new lines of communication. Eye-opening and heartfelt, You’re Wearing That? illuminates and enriches one of the most important relationships in our lives.

“Tannen analyzes and decodes scores of conversations between moms and daughters. These exchanges are so real they can make you squirm as you relive the last fraught conversation you had with your own mother or daughter. But Tannen doesn’t just point out the pitfalls of the mother-daughter relationship, she also provides guidance for changing the conversations (or the way that we feel about the conversations) before they degenerate into what Tannen calls a mutually aggravating spiral, a “self-perpetuating cycle of escalating responses that become provocations.” – The San Francisco Chronicle 

Deborah Tannen’s #1 New York Times bestseller You Just Don’t Understand revolutionized communication between women and men. Now, in her most provocative and engaging book to date, she takes on what is potentially the most fraught and passionate connection of women’s lives: the mother-daughter relationship.
It was Tannen who first showed us that men and women speak different languages. Mothers and daughters speak the same language–but still often misunderstand each other, as they struggle to find the right balance between closeness and independence. Both mothers and daughters want to be seen for who they are, but tend to see the other as falling short of who she should be. Each overestimates the other’s power and underestimates her own.
Why do daughters complain that their mothers always criticize, while mothers feel hurt that their daughters shut them out? Why do mothers and daughters critique each other on the Big Three–hair, clothes, and weight–while longing for approval and understanding? And why do they scrutinize each other for reflections of themselves?
Deborah Tannen answers these and many other questions as she explains why a remark that would be harmless coming from anyone else can cause an explosion when it comes from your mother or your daughter. She examines every aspect of this complex dynamic, from the dark side that can shadow a woman throughout her life, to the new technologies like e-mail and instant messaging that are transforming mother-daughter communication. Most important, she helps mothers and daughters understand each other, the key to improving their relationship.
With groundbreaking insights, pitch-perfect dialogues, and deeply moving memories of her own mother, Tannen untangles the knots daughters and mothers can get tied up in. Readers will appreciate Tannen’s humor as they see themselves on every page and come away with real hope for breaking down barriers and opening new lines of communication. Eye-opening and heartfelt, You’re Wearing That? illuminates and enriches one of the most important relationships in our lives.

“Tannen analyzes and decodes scores of conversations between moms and daughters. These exchanges are so real they can make you squirm as you relive the last fraught conversation you had with your own mother or daughter. But Tannen doesn’t just point out the pitfalls of the mother-daughter relationship, she also provides guidance for changing the conversations (or the way that we feel about the conversations) before they degenerate into what Tannen calls a mutually aggravating spiral, a “self-perpetuating cycle of escalating responses that become provocations.” – The San Francisco Chronicle