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" An assumption underlying almost all comments on interruptions is that they are aggressive, but the line between what's perceived as assertiveness or aggressiveness almost certainly shifts with an interrupter's gender. "

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" Everything we say has metamessages indicating how our words are to be interpreted: Is this a serious statement or a joke? Does it show annoyance or goodwill? Most of the time, metamessages are communicated and interpreted without notice because, as far as anyone can tell, the speaker and the hearer agree on their meaning. "

Deborah Tannen

Meaning

Say

Serious

" I'm a linguist. I study how people talk to each other and how the ways we talk affect our relationships. "

" New Yorkers seem to think the best thing two people can do is talk. "

" Asian cultures... place great value on avoiding open expression of disagreement and conflict because they emphasize harmony. "

" When Clinton first appeared on the national stage back in 1992, the young wife of the Arkansas governor running for president, she kept her natural-brown hair off her face with a headband. "

" 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. "

" When women told me they'd always wished they had a sister, they were thinking of this ideal of mutual encouragement and support. Many of those who have sisters also yearn for this ideal because their relationships with their sisters don't always live up to it. "

" Back when the powerful 19th-century senator Henry Clay was called 'the great compromiser,' achieving a compromise really was considered great. "

" I think of myself as a writer as much as I think of myself as a linguist and an academic. I really enjoy writing - playing with language and getting just the right metaphor. "

" There is more excitement, more amazement when a first is born. No subsequent babies can have that impact. "

" Our ways of relating to each other become like habits. "

Deborah Tannen

Our

Ways

" There are those who believe that the existence of gender differences at very early ages is evidence that these differences are biological or generic in origin. "

" Sister relationships span a huge range, from best friends to worst enemies. From 'I adore her; I talk to her five times a day' to 'I decided to cut her out of my life.' For most women, it's in between. "

" We tend to assume that we have a baseline of speech that's going to be normal in all contexts, but the truth is, we all change our ways of speaking depending on who we're talking to. And so I think it's kind of a gesture of politeness to the people you're speaking to to try to say something in their own idiom. "

" The dynamic of fathers and sons seems to be more around competition regarding things such as knowledge, accomplishments, expertise. "

Deborah Tannen

Competition

Things

" 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. "

" We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups. "

" While the requirements of a good leader and a good man are similar, the requirements of a good leader and a good woman are mutually exclusive. A good leader must be tough, but a good woman must not be. A good woman must be self-deprecating, but a good leader must not be. "

" My job is to analyze conversations and discover why communications fail. "

" I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. For part of my life, I was living in Detroit, and I remember a friend of mine commenting she could always tell when I had been speaking to my mother because my New York accent had come back. "

" When did the word 'compromise' get compromised? When did the negative connotations of 'He was caught in a compromising position' or 'She compromised her ethics' replace the positive connotations of 'They reached a compromise'? "

" The long history of conversations that family members share contributes not only to how listeners interpret words but also to how speakers choose them. "

" A sister is like yourself in a different movie, a movie that stars you in a different life. "

" Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition overweighted. "

" The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship. "

" The double bind lowers its boom on women in positions of authority, so those who haven't yet risen to such positions have not yet felt its full weight. "

" Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations. "

" Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention - an argument culture. "

" It's a particularly modern myth that married people are best friends. The best-friend concept is a uniquely female phenomena. "

" Maybe we're kind of predisposed to think that anything a politician does is calculated and therefore suspect. "