Deborah Tannen Quotes - Page 2

American - Sociologist Born: June 7, 1945

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

Power Own Her Other

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

Unique Know See Others

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

Women Talk Relationships Made

We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has.

Power Look Language Realize

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.

Life Women Sister Best

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.

Myself Enjoy Think Language

I am the youngest of three girls. My first linguistics book was a study of 'New York Jewish conversational style'. That was my dissertation.

Style I Am Book New York

Conversations with sisters can spark extremes of anger or extremes of love. Everything said between sisters carries meaning not only from what was just said but from all the conversations that came before - and 'before' can span a lifetime. The layers of meaning combine profound connection with equally profound competition.

Love Anger Competition Spark

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.

Family Sister Memories Childhood

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.

Sister Support Secrets Like

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.

Women Sister Me Live

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.

Great Pain Better Find

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.

Women Responsibility Hurt Feel

When daughters react with annoyance or even anger at the smallest, seemingly innocent remarks, mothers get the feeling that talking to their daughters can be like walking on eggshells: they have to watch every word.

Anger Walking Innocent Feeling

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.

People Support World Push

Now I am married to a man who is a partner and friend. We come from similar backgrounds and share values and interests. It is a continual source of pleasure to talk to him.

Friend I Am Man Partner

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

Knowledge Competition Things More

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.

Mother Father Makeup Clothes

I was one of those daughters who saw my mother as my enemy when I was a teen.

Mother Teen Enemy Who

Many mothers or daughters assume that words only mean one thing. 'If I feel criticised, that has to be the whole story', and 'if I feel I am being helpful, that has to be the whole story'.

I Am Words Feel Story

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.

Change Woman Words End

The meanings of words and the uses of words come from practice from the way people in a given culture use those words.

Culture People Words Practice

I believe the switch from 'lady' to 'woman' was part of the women's movement. 'Lady' was a euphemism for 'woman,' and that was one reason that we wanted to move away from it.

Women Woman Believe Lady

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.

Me Woman Animal Feel

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

Job Why Fail Discover

'Right' and 'wrong' aren't words a linguist uses.

Words Wrong Right Right And Wrong

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