The end of my book....

            In the final chapters of this book Tannen seems to put more emphasis on “genderlect” and how men and women have different approaches when it comes to speaking. Tannen refers to a work setting and how in a particular story the woman was the boss and  a man that worked for her didn’t like how she ran things but the women loved the fact that the boss actually listened to what people had to say. The man wanted the boss to be more forceful and less sensitive because that’s probably how he would have approached things if he was the boss. Tannen also explains how the use of language shows power. She uses the example of middle school girls and a married couple. The example with the middle school girls the popular girl would use hurtful words to put another girl down and show status. As for the married couple example the husband seemed to show his power by being silent. It drove his wife crazy and she was doing everything to try and get him to speak to her but nothing would work. Tannen also talks about how women seem to say “sorry” a lot. This was my favorite part because I found it to be so true. Women tend to say sorry for a lot of things as if they were apologizing for doing something wrong and most of the time that is not the case.  A quote that I found that supports this is one speaking about a 12 year old Japanese girl who writes to her grandmother about her grandfather’s death. “She began in the appropriate way: “I’m so sorry that Grandfather died.” But then she stopped and looked at what she had written. “That doesn’t sound right,” she said to her mother. “I didn’t kill him”’ (Tannen 233).If I could write to Deborah Tannen I wouldn’t really ask her any questions because the way she wrote the book is very straight forward but I would tell her that through her writing I was able to conclude that through our language she can depict so many things such as power, care, annoyance, arrogance, love. Also, the ways we speak comes a lot from our gender, females and males use words differently and makes it easy for a person to differentiate if a male is speaking or a female is speaking. The two questions I have about the nature of language is what makes boys and girls realize that they need to speak differently from each other? Why is it so hard for men and women communicate in the same way?

The platypus is described to be a combination of ducks,otters,and beavers.

                A word that I thought was going to be a fun word to choose is platypus. After googling to find the origin of the word and how it was formed I came upon some background. A scientist by the name of George Shaw was the first to examine this animal which he believed had parts or other animals. After assigning the animal a couple of scientific names it later became known as the platypus. George Shaw first assigned the name Platypus antinus but then realized that the name “platypus” was already given to a group of beetles and then came up with the scientific name Ornithorhynchus anatinus. Somewhere along the way “platypus” became the animal’s official name. Platypus is a borrowed word from Greece which in Greek would be a compound since it’s a word formed from two other words which are “flat” and “footed”. Platypus are also referred to as “duckbill” which happens to be a compound of the words “duck” and “bill” which describes one of the animal’s features. I chose “platypus” to research mostly because it’s a funny word/name to me and I have never really thought about how the word came about.It’s actually interesting how so much thought went into finding the right name for such a funny looking animal.

OPTION#1

Option #1.

Write a brief critical review of your book (for those of you who have not finished reading it, you will have to do it thus far). Structure it in the following way: part one should be a two-hundred word abstract that simply summarizes the book without injecting any of your own ideas or opinions. Part two should answer the following questions: “How does this book connect to your own “language story.” How has it changed, enriched, or informed your initial ideas about language as it relates to you, personally.

“You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation” written by Deborah Tannen is an insightful book describing the way men and women use communication. Tannen is constantly describing the different ways men and women communicate and reasons behind it.  When it comes to communicating men seem to take a different approach aside from women. Men seem to want to be more superior in conversation and want to feel that they obtain some sort of power whereas women aren’t too focused in being superior and often express their emotions more than men. Tannen begins her book with a chapter entitled “Different Words, Different Worlds”  this title explains what most of the book is about how women and men can be in the same conversation but get two completely different things out of it. The mentality of men and women seem to work completely different when it comes to how to speak, when to speak, how language makes you feel, and the choices of words. Tannen also explains how men and women react to gossip, how they communicate when they are in a relationship, how certain people happen to feel better when they speak with different people, and how men and women react differently when interacting with strangers.

                Right away I was able to relate to this book. Though I haven’t finished it I feel like I can see the many differences between males and females from the evidence and stories that Tannen shares. When I first read reviews about this book I found negative reviews saying that she seems to be sexist and I kept these reviews in mind when I started reading and I realized that Tannen isn’t sexist at all she speaks on behalf both males and females based on evidence and stories. Tannen at times says things about women that I feel are harsh but I can relate to them and conclude that they aren’t false statements  and they are more general statements, she doesn’t necessarily suggest that all men and women communicate in certain ways. This book has opened my eyes to actually observe the differences of communication between the sexes and from my part see why I tend to communicate in different ways. It has also allowed me to realize things that I do when I communicate or don’t communicate to others that I haven’t even noticed until I started reading the book.This book has also allowed me to see the many aspectsof language and how men and women use language differently.

2/5 of my book....

          The author of "You Just Don't Understand" compares women to men when it comes to communicating. In this section of the book she begins to talk about who talks more in public men or women? Men seemed to like to feel a sense of power by speaking often in a public discussion whereas women keep to themselves and just listen. Deborah Tannen also points out that women in the same group discussion would talk twice as much when the men weren't present. Do women just tend to feel more comfortable among women? Deborah Tannen also speaks about how men the majority of the time will refuse to ask for directions even if they have passed the same tree 20 times. She got insight on why guys refuse help from others and it's mostly because some guys don't want to be misled and others just don't want to appear to others as incompetent and unable to find directions on their own. She then explained how women on the other hand like to ask for directions and like to know where they are going and even if they know they are being misled they will appreciate the efforts of the people trying to help them. Tannen then begins to talk about  people that are silent around certain people. She uses a married couple as an example  and explains how the wife is constantly upset that her husband seems to never have anything to say when he's around her but once they are around other people he becomes the life of the party. I was having trouble understanding why. Could it be that he just doesn't feel the need to talk to her or is it because he just feels like he does speak to her enough just not as much as she would like? The end of this section speaks about gossip and how its used in many ways. Tannen at one point described gossip as forming sense of power among people. The gossiper has some sort of power over the person their gossiping about. I really like this book so far, it really explains a lot about language between both sexes in an interesting way.

My Name is S-ah-sh-ah

For Linguists: My name,Sasha, begins with the letter “S” which is an alveolar fricative and is not voiced. To pronounce the beginning of my name you would first make the “s” sound with the front part of your tongue on the alveolar ridge. The second letter of my name “a” is pronounced like the front vowel “æ”. The third and fourth letter forms a voiceless palatal fricative and this sound is made with your tongue and your palate. The last letter “a” is pronounced the same way the second “a” from my name is made like “æ”. In IPA my name would be sæʃæ.

For Non-Linguists: To pronounce my name, Sasha, you would need to start by saying the “s” sound found in the begining of the word snake. Then you need to open your mouth to make a “ah” sound which can be found in the word salad. Following the “ah” sound you need to make a “sh” sound which is found in the word shoe. When making this sound you should feel air being pushed out of your mouth. The last step in pronouncing my name is repeating the “ah” sound.

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.