Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends (Language and Learning for Human Service Professions) [Paperback]

Deborah Tannen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1984 | ISBN-10: 089391200X | ISBN-13: 978-0893912000

This book provides a basic approach to the linguistic analysis of conversation, building toward a theory of the aesthetics of conversation by analyzing spontaneous talk among friends. It sheds light on such issues as pacing, turn-taking, storytelling, and humor, showing the effects on interaction when participants' conversational styles differ. Its readability makes it suitable for use as a text in discourse analysis at all levels.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for earlier edition:

"By far the most interesting and accessible--and fun!--introduction to conversational style that I know of. Students love it, and I use it as a required textbook whenever I teach sociolinguistics."--Doug Biber, Northern Arizona University

"Interesting and valuable for both laypersons and students."--Language

"A contribution not only for the general reader but for any researcher or student interested in conversation."--Language and Society

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her academic books include the first edition of this book, published in 1984, as well as Gender and Discourse and the edited volumes Framing in Discourse, and Gender and Conversational Interaction (both OUP, 1993). In all, she has published nineteen books, including most notably The New York Times Best Seller You Just Don't Understand.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Ablex Publishing (January 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089391200X
• ISBN-13: 978-0893912000
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,738,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Deborah Tannen is the acclaimed author of You Just Don't Understand, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly four years including eight months as #1; the ten-week New York Times bestseller You're Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation; I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs and Kids When You're All Adults, which won the Books for a Better Life Award; Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work; That's Not What I Meant!; and many other books. A professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, she has written for and been featured in newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Time, and Newsweek. She appears frequently on TV and radio, including such shows as 20/20, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Colbert Report, Nightline, Today, Good Morning America, and NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She is university professor and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, and has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University. She lives with her husband in the Washington, D.C., area.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Misunderstandings, February 10, 2002

By 

Charlotte A. Hu (San Antonio, TX, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends (Hardcover)

Deborah Tannen's book hit me with what should have been obvious years ago. During a recent conversation, a fellow student at the American University voiced some hesitation about applying for a master's degree in Sociology, because her undergraduate degree was in Music. Lacking a background in Sociology, she felt inadequate for the task. I replied that she might be surprised how much she her previous degree might open unusual research fields for her in Sociology. I commented that she could draw on her background in music to do some kind of research on the impact of music in people's lives or the similarity diversity of music across cultural lines. She then commented that finding funding was difficult and again, I said, "You can." Just search the Internet. There are so many scholarships and grants. You can do it.
Oddly, her body language when she shook my hand and said good-bye gave me the impression that she felt more assaulted than assured by our brief conversation.
Deborah Tannen's book explains in large measure what may have been happening. Tannen's book takes a simple dinner conversation between six people and shows what works and why as well as what fails and why. Among her examples is a matter of differing opinions about turn-taking. The "New Yorkers" in Tannen's book feel uncomfortable with silence. The British girl in the book feels a need for silence in order to contribute.
Tannen examines differing views of conversation pace, overlap, rate of speech, personal and non-personal topics and more. Tannen shows that some people feel discussion of personal topics is a method for building rapport, while others feel it is an invasion of privacy. Some feel more comfortable when discussing impersonal topics and this allows them to relax more and allows rapport to be established. Some of the participants in Tannen's study felt that a rapid response implied an interest in the topic, others felt that a rapid response implied a desire to move on to a more interesting topic.
Although Tannen's research did not touch on cross-cultural gaps, it inspired me to think about how conversations went wrong in Japan and in Egypt and why. What expectations were different between myself and my international friends. The woman thinking about seeking a master's degree in Sociology was an upper class Egyptian. Her sense of timing, ideas about appropriate topics for discussion, sense of physical space and ideas about appropriate tone are very different from mine. Interestingly Tannen notes that speech behavior patterns are learned early and remain largely unchanged throughout a life-time. While much of the data in this book was useful, this aspect seems invalid when examined in relationship to learning new languages. B.F. Skinner and Pavlov have shown how behaviors can be modified. No doubt that for the participants of Tannen's study who appear to spend most of their time within an American culture, her statement seems valid. However, taken to Marine Corps boot camp, where behaviors in general are changed radically, I believe a more detailed linguistic study would show a marked change in behavior patterns of participants before and after military training. Moreover, taken internationally, speech patterns learned through cultural immersion into a foreign language might also have a marked impact on speech behaviors. My Japanese is considerably lighter in tone and accompanied by a mild body language compared to my English. Similarly, my Arabic is considerably louder in tone and accompanied by a more expressive body language than my English.
Tannen notes at the end of her study that there is much more work to do in this field. Cross-cultural studies are one of the topics that she mentions as specifically worthwhile. Her concluding notes about rhythm, poetry and the literary parallels of spoken language made me think of the movie Matrix where the aliens enemy agents speak English, but with a decidedly odd and uncomfortable rhythm. Her comments about appropriate content make me think of most of the dialog in the movie Pulp Fiction. This movie was decidedly odd because it addressed issues in unusual contexts, such as religious discussions between gangsters participating in an assassination. These are, of course, extreme examples of odd content and form, but being extreme, they make the topics in Tannen's text easier to grasp.

1.0 out of 5 stars Kindle version flawed, January 17, 2012

By 

SMH - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Conversational Style : Analyzing Talk among Friends (Kindle Edition)

Do not buy the kindle version of this book. It says it is Deborah Tannen's Conversational Style, but it is really Carol Meyer's Discovering Eve.