Free Essays on You Just Don’t Understand

Hear What I Am Really Trying To Say, Tannen’s (1990) book, â€Å"You Just Don’t Understand,† explains heterogeneous facts about men and women’s communication styles. Tannen says once these gender differences are sorted out, men and women can recognize and understand how to confront real conflicts, rather than fighting styles. When men and women learn to accept the opposite sex’s conversational styles, they can learn to understand a shared language- where there is symmetry and negotiation of conflicts. It is important to recognize that these linguistic differences between men and women do not stem solely from what Tannen (1990) describes as â€Å"cross-cultural communication.† There are very apparent differences in speaking styles; for example, women tend to offer suggestions and give reasons, whereas men tend to give demands without reasons. However, the root of communication conflicts is really the result of the opposite natures of male and female. It is the nature of men to be dominant, and it is the nature of women to be submissive; any revolt against these natures, will cause conflict amongst men and women. Tannen says, â€Å"If a man experiences life as a fight for freedom, he is naturally inclined to resist attempts to control him and determine his behavior†(p.152). Since male and female â€Å"natures† influence behavior and conversational styles, they play more of a significant role in communication than we may think; and evidence of this dates clear ba ck to creation. The book of Genesis clearly defines God’s purpose for creating man and woman; God said man (created in the likeness of God) is to have dominion over all the earth and every living creature. Woman (created from man) is to multiply and be a companion for man. God intended there to be orderliness, which is why He designed men and women with very specific biological and psychological differences. These differences distinguish natures and determine male and f... Free Essays on You Just Don’t Understand Free Essays on You Just Don’t Understand Hear What I Am Really Trying To Say, Tannen’s (1990) book, â€Å"You Just Don’t Understand,† explains heterogeneous facts about men and women’s communication styles. Tannen says once these gender differences are sorted out, men and women can recognize and understand how to confront real conflicts, rather than fighting styles. When men and women learn to accept the opposite sex’s conversational styles, they can learn to understand a shared language- where there is symmetry and negotiation of conflicts. It is important to recognize that these linguistic differences between men and women do not stem solely from what Tannen (1990) describes as â€Å"cross-cultural communication.† There are very apparent differences in speaking styles; for example, women tend to offer suggestions and give reasons, whereas men tend to give demands without reasons. However, the root of communication conflicts is really the result of the opposite natures of male and female. It is the nature of men to be dominant, and it is the nature of women to be submissive; any revolt against these natures, will cause conflict amongst men and women. Tannen says, â€Å"If a man experiences life as a fight for freedom, he is naturally inclined to resist attempts to control him and determine his behavior†(p.152). Since male and female â€Å"natures† influence behavior and conversational styles, they play more of a significant role in communication than we may think; and evidence of this dates clear ba ck to creation. The book of Genesis clearly defines God’s purpose for creating man and woman; God said man (created in the likeness of God) is to have dominion over all the earth and every living creature. Woman (created from man) is to multiply and be a companion for man. God intended there to be orderliness, which is why He designed men and women with very specific biological and psychological differences. These differences distinguish natures and determine male and f... Free Essays on You Just Don’t Understand In Deborah Tannen’s #1 National Bestseller book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, Tannen explains in her book why men and women have such a hard time communicating between each other. Tannen explains what some of the problems are in our conversations between each other and how these problems occur in our conversations. Tannen further explains the differences in men and women’s conversation styles and how men and women’s talk differs from each other. Tannen and the other authors try to explain aggression. Some Sociolinguist and authors and other professionals in the area of linguistics disagree with some of Tannen’s ideas about conversations, and there are others agree with her. Tannen says in her book â€Å"If we recognize and understand the differences between us, we can take them into account, adjust to, and learn from each other’s styles.† To fully understand Tannen’s ideas about conversations and about men and women’s conversation styles you have to first fully understand about what causes aggression, because Tannen blames many conversation difficulties on men’s aggression and dominance. In her book, Tannen states â€Å"No one could deny that men as a class are dominant in our society, and that many individual men seek to dominate women in their lives.† Anne Campbell the author of Men, Women, and Aggression talked in her book about where aggression comes from, and about what many professionals think about the origins of aggression, including the greatest psychologist ever, Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud argued for two sources of human aggression: Eros, a drive that acts to prolong and reproduce life, and Thanatos, an innate drive toward disintegration that Freud believed was directed against the self. If he was right, how is it that we all don’t commit suicide? In part, it is because of a struggle between Thanatos and Eros, which, luckily for us, Eros usually wins. But it is also because ...