Summery of my book so far.....

                       As I mentioned before the book I chose for my research paper is entitled, "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation" written by Deborah Tannen. In the beginning of this book the author speaks about how in her past relationship there was a sense of miscommunication and this miscommunication seemed to be affected by the language used where her ex husband was raised. Since he was from a small town that suggested that women are inferior to men, when the author would raise her voice to make him understand what she's trying to point out to him he took it as her trying to overpower him by raising her voice.The author then relates to how the way we choose to use language varies in gender. Tannen refers to studies of couples, children and teenagers of different ages to point out that by the words men use and the way they use them to approach situations suggest that they don't want to seem inferior and use a tough guy approach. Whereas women seem to not be as focused in being superior but react more emotional when dealing with situations. According to Tannen, men and women don't seem to be on the same page when they are in a conversation because men use words that can be offensive to women and vice versa. The book seems very interesting so far and I can relate it to many people I know especially couples who can't seem to compromise because they each understand things in different ways in which can be hurtful,confusing, and upsetting. I can also relate this book to my life because as a female I always hear stories about girls in relationships that are unhappy and don't understand why the other person in the relationship acts the way they do and says things that seem hurtful or insensitive but in reality the guy is probably trying to say all the right things in all the wrong ways. This is why women always think guys just don't understand.

Book for Research Paper

          After googling some of the books on the list of books for the research paper there was one that caught my attention. The title of the book is You Just Dont Understand:Men and Women in Conversation written by Deborah Tannen.After reading a synopsis on the book I realized that it's based on a subject that we face daily and is interesting. The book focuses on the fact that men and women use words differently and can get different information out of the same conversation.We always hear women saying how guys just dont understand or vice versa im hoping this book explains why.

Language Bringing Us All Together

Language shapes who we are and allows us to communicate with many different types of people all over the world. Growing up in a household where English and Spanish were spoken made it easier for me to relate to not only my classmates in school but Spanish speaking people that I would encounter. Language for the most part is something that everyone in the world shares. We all have a language whether we understand them or not. As explained in the article entitled “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” by Guy Deutscher, people use their language in different ways. I believe I use the languages I speak in different ways depending on who I speak with which allows me to connect with the specific person in a way that I feel is appropriate.

Language in many ways seems like a mystery to me but it is understandable how we have a sort of instinct to use language to express how we feel. In my perspective we become accustomed as an infant to our surroundings which makes us familiar with the language spoken by the people around us. This familiarity makes it a necessity for us to learn the language in order to communicate. After reading the article by Guy Deutscher I couldn’t help but connect the surroundings where people live with how it shapes their language and the way they describe things. For example Deutscher mentioned that we use geographic directions when speaking about larger spaces of land and egocentric coordinates when speaking about smaller spaces so for the most part it can be concluded that since we don’t live in such a vast place compared to others we find it normal to use egocentric coordinates to describe locations. Though we all have different ways to describe things we still have the fact that we have a language in which bonds us all together and is something that we all have in common.