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Have you ever said one thing, only to have someone misinterpret it entirely?

You're not alone.

Communication is rarely straightforward. In fact, every person has a unique conversational style.

The way we speak and listen is deeply rooted in our cultural background. Everything from gender, ethnicity, hometown, and social class can influence the meaning behind our words. And because all human relationships are built on communication, failing to understand one another can bring about annoyance, frustration, and even pain. On the other hand, understanding how our friends and family use language can add a new depth of meaning to our closest relationships.

Dr. Deborah Tannen has spent her career studying conversational style. A professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University, Dr. Tannen authored 12 books on communication, exploring how the subtleties of human speech shape our relationships and our lives.

In her latest book, You're the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women's Friendships, Dr. Tannen takes a deep dive into the emotional intimacy of female friendships. Tannen illustrates how women can use communication to avoid painful miscommunications and foster profoundly gratifying friendships.

On November 8th, 2018, Dr. Deborah Tannen will speak about her new book at the opening night of the Jewish Literary Festival, hosted by The Soul Center in partnership with The Ivy Bookshop and JMORE. In advance of her appearance, Dr. Tannen spoke with the Soul Center to talk the talk about talk.
 

Let's start with the basics: how do language and conversation influence our closest relationships?

I've spent my entire career exploring the effect of language �" especially what I call conversational style - on relationships. We draw conclusions about other people, and they draw conclusions about us, based on ways of speaking. My doctoral dissertation, which later became my first book Conversational Style, showed how this works. I compared the conversational styles of New Yorkers who had East European Jewish backgrounds with those of non-Jewish speakers from Southern California. I found that tiny linguistic phenomena, such as how long a pause the speakers expected between turns, shaped their participation in the conversation and their feelings about each other. The New Yorkers expected slightly shorter pauses�"or not pause at all�"between turns, so they'd start speaking because they thought the Californians didn't want the floor, when in fact they were waiting for the right amount of pause before taking a turn. The result was that the Californians had a hard time getting the floor at all! This happens whenever two people have a different sense of how long a pause is normal. The person who expects a longer pause walks away thinking, “You're not interested in what I have to say. You only want to hear yourself talk.” The one who expects a shorter pause comes away thinking: “You're making me do all the work. Why don't you say something?!”

Your research shows that men and women use language differently and have different expectations of their conversations. What are those differences?

The first thing I want to say�"it's very important�"is that not all men or all women are alike. We have many influences on our conversational styles other than gender, as I just explained about ethnic and geographic influences�"and as I described in my first book for general audiences, That's Not What I Meant! Nonetheless, there are patterns that tend to vary by gender, as I wrote about in my book You Just Don't Understand. Women and men often walk away from the same conversation with very different impressions of what was meant. Men tend to be sensitive to whether a conversation puts them in a one-up or one-down position. Women, on the other hand, tend to ask: “Did this [conversation] bring us closer together or push us further apart?” Individuals vary in how sensitive they are to the subtle nuances of what others say to them. Both men and women use language and conversation to gather information and create intimacy, but may differ in how we go about that. Men often connect with each other by sharing impersonal information, which is why many men talk about sports or their favorite apps, while women are more inclined to exchange personal information and expect their friends to share details of their lives as well. Men also tend to form bonds by doing things together, which explains how they can feel very close to their friends without knowing what's going on in each other's lives. Women are often hurt when their friends (or mothers, daughters, or sisters) don't tell them about something important going on in their lives.

The pain women experience as a result of conversations with their friends seems linked to the fears you discuss in You're The Only One I Can Tell. How does the “Fear of Being Left Out” or the “Fear of Getting Kicked Out” play out in female conversations?

I'm glad you picked up on those terms I developed: FOBLO (Fear of Being Left Out) and FOGKO (Fear of Being Kicked Out). Here's some background: It's often said that women are more sensitive than men, but I'd say that's not accurate. Women and men tend to be sensitive about different things. Whereas men tend to be sensitive to being put down or pushed around, women tend to be sensitive to indications that they're being pushed away. If women feel hurt, it is often because they were not told something or not included in something. That's FOBLO. But FOGKO is even worse. We see this aspect of conversational style begin in childhood. Young girls may punish their friends by locking them out and not letting them play. My interpretation is that this has to do with the role of secrets in female friendships. For boys, their best friend is the one they do everything with, but a girl's best friend is the person she tells everything to. Closeness is negotiated through personal revelation; because girls are sharing secrets with friends, they don't want girls they don't like to hear those secrets, so they lock them out. Both FOBLO and FOGKO develop from those sensitivities.  

Besides gender, what other factors influence our conversational style?

Ethnic, regional, and class backgrounds also play a significant role. I'm particularly interested in cross-cultural differences that influence people's assumptions about the “right” way to have a conversation. For example, Eastern European Jews have what I call a high-involvement style; they'll actively show you how involved they are in the conversation by standing closer, talking louder, discussing more personal topics, and responding to their conversational partner with “enthusiastic listening” techniques like talking along or exclaiming “oh my gosh!” or “wow!” On the other hand is a style I call high-considerateness, which is common among Californians or Midwesterners, for example, and also Jews with German rather than East European backgrounds. They tend to stand further away, speak at a lower volume with longer pauses, and to be more indirect. So, conversational style results from our expectations of how to use language to say what we mean. Often, miscommunications arise when conversationalists have different conversational styles.

With so many different conversational styles, it's easy to see how the messages we give and receive can be misconstrued in ways that might potentially damage our relationships. What do you think is most misunderstood about how women communicate?

Women tend to be more indirect when getting others to do something. (Men tend to be more indirect about others things, like apologizing.) An unfortunate stereotype is that what a woman says can't be trusted, or that she doesn't know what she wants. Here's an example that was told me by a journalist, a man. He said he'd been riding in a car with his wife, when she turned to him and said, “Are you thirsty? Would you like to stop for a drink?” He wasn't thirsty, so he said no. Later he learned she had wanted to stop. He was frustrated; why didn't she tell him? I explained she probably didn't expect a yes/no answer. Her question was probably meant to start a conversation where they'd each say how they feel about it (maybe “I'm tired, do you mind if we don't stop,” or “I'm not thirsty but if you want, we can stop”) and come to a decision taking everyone's feelings into account.

Sometime later I was discussing this example with another journalist, also a man. He said, “Sometimes my wife brings something up that way. I know what she means, but I won't give her what she wants because I feel like she didn't say it the right way - she didn't say it directly.” My first thought was, “What a jerk!” But then I realized, many women react the same way when men apologize indirectly. We want them to say the words: “I'm sorry” or “I apologize.” When it comes to apologizing, women tend to be much more direct than men. Many men are uncomfortable apologizing because they feel it puts them in a one-down position. For example, a neighbor of mine once owed me an apology, which he delivered indirectly by saying: “I guess I wasn't much help.” I thought, if I argue in my writing that people who tend to be direct, including many men, should respect the style of indirectness, then I, and other women, need to accept indirect apologies.

How do different situations influence the way women communicate? 

I've written a lot about the “double bind” women face in the workplace. (And this does apply to all women.) When women in positions of authority at work speak as expected of those in authority, they are seen as too aggressive. But when women speak as women are expected to speak, they are underestimated, seen as less competent than they really are. In my book, Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work I found something very interesting: women in authority positions tended to be indirect when making requests of subordinates. The subordinates understood and appreciated it, but their superiors often perceived them as lacking confidence. Another difference that can come up at work or at home, is that many women like to talk about a problem before coming up with a solution, whereas many men prefer to jump right to the solution. This can be frustrating to women because it shuts down the “troubles talk” conversation they were trying to start.

In You're the Only One I Can Tell, you wrote extensively about technology's influence on communication. How is social media reshaping our relationships?

Technology and specifically social media are transforming how we communicate, but not so much changing our conversational styles as ratcheting up the same problems that we had before. Women have always used conversation to stay in touch and maintain their relationships, but technology has increased the frequency of these conversations. Many women�"especially young women-- update their best friends about their lives in real-time by texting them regularly throughout the day. Here's something new, though: Some are now sharing their personal details not only with their close friends, but with the whole world by posting them on Facebook and other social media.

We talked earlier about FOBLO, the “Fear of Being Left Out,” and how hurtful that is for girls and women. Social media can be dangerous for women who are particularly sensitive to being left out because it forces them to come face-to-face with images of social situations they weren't invited to or couldn't attend. Those images themselves are also very misleading. Young women often go to a party just long enough to take a picture and share it on social media. It's as if we have two lives: the one we're actually living, and the one we're showing the world on social media. Women have always wanted to be perceived as popular, busy, and included. Social media has only ratcheted up this expectation. On the other hand, the way social media expands communication can create feelings of connection that I see as real, amplifying what's positive about relationships.

What surprised you most when researching the way women communicate?

The biggest surprise in writing this book was the significant influence extraversion, and introversion played on conversational style and friendships. I've written many books on language, conversational style, and relationships but the role of extraversion and introversion never came up. When women talked to me about their friendships�"how they interact, how many friends they have or want�"they often mentioned being introverts or extraverts. Even though women in general use secrets to form close bonds, it seemed to me that women who are introverts reveal less about themselves than extroverts, and might talk to friends less often. Not surprisingly, introverts told me they needed more time to recharge. A woman's tendency to be introverted or extroverted also influenced how many friends she expected to have. Those who told me they only need a few friends were also those who said they were introverts. No one told me explicitly, “I have gobs of friends; I'm an extravert!” but I think that may well have been the case for those who told me they had many close friends in many different quarters of their lives.
 

What's one message you'd like women attending your event to take away?

My goal is to shed light on women's friendships, both what makes them gratifying and what can make them challenging. It helps to understand the complexities of our friendships. I think many people might feel relieved to know they aren't the only ones who experience those complexities. Everyone tells me they see themselves - and their friends - in the examples I share. And they especially appreciate the pleasure of laughing together when they recognize experiences they've had. In the end, understanding what goes on in friendships provides ways to strengthen these relationships that are such a big part of our lives.