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" In this world, conversations are negotiations for closeness in which people try to seek and give confirmation and support, and to reach consensus. They try to protect themselves from others' attempts to push them away. "

Deborah Tannen

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" I can't tell you how many times I heard from younger sisters that their older sisters were bossy and judgmental. "

" I would say 'woman' used to be a noun, and now it is a noun and also an adjective. And words change their functions in that way. It's one of the most common phenomena about words. They start as one thing, and they end up as something else. "

" For women, detailed conversation is our lifeblood, while for men it's just not as critical. "

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

" My mother cared a lot about clothes. It was a point of friction because when I was a teenager, and I only wanted to wear my father's shirts, and I never wanted to wear makeup, she would say: 'Put on lipstick.' That was her thing. "

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

" Many mothers and daughters are as close as any two people can be, but closeness always carries with it the need - indeed, the desire - to consider how your actions will affect the other person, and this can make you feel that you are no longer in control of your own life. "

" 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. "

" Birth order is fascinating, and it is forever. "

" 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'? "

" It might seem at first surprising that when I studied women and men talking at work, I found that women 'interrupted' each other more often than men did - when they were in all-women conversations. "

Deborah Tannen

Work

Men

" My interest in the linguistic differences between women and men grew from research I conducted early in my career on conversations between speakers of different ethnic and regional backgrounds. "

" In some ways, siblings, and especially sisters, are more influential in your childhood than your parents. "

" My writing is about connecting ways of talking to human relationships. My purpose is to show that linguistics has something to offer in understanding and improving relationships. "

" Women as mothers grapple with corresponding contradictions. The adoration they feel for their grown daughters, mixed with the sense of responsibility for their well-being, can be overwhelming, matched only by the hurt they feel when their attempts to help or just stay connected are rebuffed or even excoriated as criticism or devilish interference. "

" I think it is important to remember that there are so many different ways to be sisters. "

" I wouldn't say that it's hard for sisters to treat each other with respect. Many do. "

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

" A sister is the one person you can call in the middle of the night when you can't sleep or the one who doesn't want to hear about your problems unless you're ready to do something about them. She's the one who is there when you need her or the one whose absence when you need her hurts the most. "

" 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. "

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

" Most non-New Yorkers, finding themselves within hearing range of strangers' conversation, think it's nice to pretend they didn't hear. But many New Yorkers think it's nice to toss in a relevant comment. "

" The contrasting focus on connection versus hierarchy also sheds light on innumerable adult conversations - and frustrations. Say a woman tells another about a personal problem and hears in response, 'I know how you feel' or 'the same thing happens to me.' The resulting 'troubles talk' reinforces the connection between them. "

" Why don't men like to stop and ask directions? This question, which I first addressed in my 1990 book 'You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation', garnered perhaps the most attention of any issue or insight in that book. "

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

" Each underestimates her own power and overestimates the other's. "

" In my own writing, I avoid 'female' and try to say 'woman' because I feel that the word 'female' has connotations of not just biology but also non-human mammals. The idea of 'female' to me is more appropriate for a female animal. "

" A double bind is far worse than a straightforward damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't dilemma. It requires you to obey two mutually exclusive commands: Anything you do to fulfill one violates the other. "

" Relationships are made of talk - and talk is for girls and women. "

" As a sociolinguist, I want to know how cultural differences affect the ways people talk and listen. My research method, inspired by the work of Robin Lakoff and John Gumperz of the University of California at Berkeley, is sociolinguistic microanalysis. I tape-record and transcribe naturally occurring conversations. "