Deborah Tannen Essay

In Deborah Tannen’s “The Power of Talk” basely describe a different linguistic style between men and women when they interacted with people. Those different in linguistic style were shaped when they were grew up. Also, as they were different in linguistic style, it would shaped them into certain type of behavior in the future and create misunderstanding during conversation. This reading reminds me when I was working for my first job.

My manager asked me if it was all right to work over time for the next few days.

As I didn’t have any work experience and any idea about linguistic style, I declined his idea. Due to the different between linguistic style, it turns out that he was trying to told me nicely to work overtime instead of asking me if I wanted to work overtime. Although I actually work overtime, the manager was still disappointed at me.

After that, I found out that I was understanding the basic meaning of the sentence instead of the true meaning which cost me an unnecessary trouble due to the misunderstanding.

As I am an international student, I realized that Canadian have a huge linguistic style different than my country. People in Canadian were more indirect in their meaning than my country and I was surprised when I first came to Canada which cost me a lot because of misunderstanding. I have to ask the same question for a few times to confirm the true meaning of the conversation.

Deborah Tannen The Power Of Talk