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" The study of gender and language might seem at first to be a narrowly focused field, but it is actually as interdisciplinary as they come. "
Deborah Tannen
Focused
Study
Language
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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. "
Deborah Tannen
Older
Heard
How
" 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. "
Deborah Tannen
Straightforward
Two
You
" 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. "
Deborah Tannen
Help
Feel
Responsibility
" 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. "
Deborah Tannen
Desire
You
People
" Where the daughter sees power, the mother feels powerless. Daughters and mothers, I found, both overestimate the other's power - and underestimate their own. "
Deborah Tannen
Power
Underestimate
Mother
" The word 'sister' evokes an ideal of connection and support, like the friendships that made Rebecca Wells's 'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood' and Ann Brashares's 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' into best-selling novels and successful films. "
Deborah Tannen
Support
Sister
Successful
" You're not from Puerto Rico, so you should say Puerto Rico like all the other people from the place that you come from. "
Deborah Tannen
People
Place
You
" 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'? "
Deborah Tannen
Positive
She
Ethics
" When evidence emerged that Clinton was a devoted mother, Margaret Carlson writing in 'TIME' found her guilty of 'yuppie overdoting on her daughter.' "
Deborah Tannen
Guilty
Mother
Time
" 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. "
Deborah Tannen
Who
Believe
Differences
" I've long believed that if you understand how conversational styles work, you can make adjustments in conversations to get what you want in your relationships. "
Deborah Tannen
You
Long
Relationships
" It's a particularly modern myth that married people are best friends. The best-friend concept is a uniquely female phenomena. "
Deborah Tannen
Best
Modern
Myth
" 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. "
Deborah Tannen
Enjoy
Language
Myself
" For each other, at each other: Sisters can be either or both. The same could be said of people in any close relationship. Yet there is something special about sisters - specially gratifying and specially fraught. "
Deborah Tannen
Said
People
Relationship
" I am the youngest of three girls. My first linguistics book was a study of 'New York Jewish conversational style'. That was my dissertation. "
Deborah Tannen
New
Three
Style
" I think it is important to remember that there are so many different ways to be sisters. "
Deborah Tannen
Remember
Think
Different
" My job is to analyze conversations and discover why communications fail. "
Deborah Tannen
Discover
Why
Fail
" 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 wouldn't say that it's hard for sisters to treat each other with respect. Many do. "
Deborah Tannen
Treat
Hard
Respect
" Maybe we're kind of predisposed to think that anything a politician does is calculated and therefore suspect. "
Deborah Tannen
Anything
Think
Politician
" I was one of those daughters who saw my mother as my enemy when I was a teen. "
Deborah Tannen
Saw
Who
Mother
" 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. "
Deborah Tannen
Line
Gender
Shifts
" 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. "
Deborah Tannen
Makeup
Father
Clothes
" Asian cultures... place great value on avoiding open expression of disagreement and conflict because they emphasize harmony. "
Deborah Tannen
Value
Conflict
Great
" Each underestimates her own power and overestimates the other's. "
Deborah Tannen
Other
Power
Own
" If you understand gender differences in what I call 'conversational style', you may not be able to prevent disagreements from arising, but you stand a better chance of preventing them from spiraling out of control. "
Deborah Tannen
Gender
Stand
Style
" A sister is someone who owns part of what you own: a house, perhaps, or a less tangible legacy, like memories of your childhood and the experience of your family. "
Deborah Tannen
Family
Experience
Memories
" Mothers and daughters find in each other the source of great comfort but also of great pain. We talk to each other in better and worse ways than we talk to anyone else. "
Deborah Tannen
Comfort
Pain
Better
" For women, detailed conversation is our lifeblood, while for men it's just not as critical. "
Deborah Tannen
Just
Men
Our
" The dynamic of fathers and sons seems to be more around competition regarding things such as knowledge, accomplishments, expertise. "
Deborah Tannen
Competition
Things
More