The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words

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The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words (Reprint) Pub. Date: 1/28/1999 Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
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The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue Pub. Date: 2/24/1998 Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
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The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue (2 Cassettes) (Cassette - Abridged, 2 cassettes, 3 hrs.) Pub. Date: 3/28/1998 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

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Overview

THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS LINGUIST OFFERS A COMPLETELY ORIGINAL ANALYSIS OF THE WAY WE COMMUNICATE--AND A REVOLUTIONARY LANGUAGE TO LIVE BY!

In her #1 bestseller You Just Don't Understand, Deborah Tannen showed why talking to someone of the opposite sex can be like talking to someone from another world. Now Tannen is back with another groundbreaking book, this time widening her lens to examine the way we communicate in public--in the media, in politics, in our courtrooms, and classrooms--once again letting us see in a new way forces that have powerfully shaped our lives.

The war on drugs, the battle of the sexes, political turf combat--in the argument culture, war metaphors pervade our talk and influence our thinking. We approach anything we need to accomplish as a fight between two opposing sides. In this fascinating book, Tannen shows how deeply entrenched this cultural tendency is, the forms it takes, and how it affects us every day--sometimes in useful ways, but often causing damage.

The Argument Culture is a remarkable book that will change forever the way you perceive--and communicate with--the world.

Editorial Reviews

Entertainment Weekly

...[An] illuminating study...

Entertainment Weekly

...[An] illuminating study...

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780345407511
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 1/28/1999
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 348
Sales rank: 535,581
Product dimensions: 4.90 (w) x 8.00 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Deborah Tannen

Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand was on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly four years. A frequent guest on national television and radio, including Good Morning America, the Today show, ABC World News Tonight, 20/20, 48 Hours, and Oprah, she has been featured in and has written for such magazines and newspapers as Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. An internationally recognized scholar, she is university professor and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

From the Hardcover edition.

Biography

In 2001, Deborah Tannen published a book that explored the eternally complex relationship between men and women, specifically why communication can be so darn difficult between the sexes. You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation clearly struck a chord with its readers, spending nearly four years on the New York Times bestseller list (holding the No. 1 spot for eight weeks) and having been translated into 29 languages. Bolstered by Tannen's extensive experience as a linguist, You Just Don't Understand has played a significant role in improving relations between men and women throughout the world.

Tannen followed her breakthrough work with several others that have tackled the difficulties in improving communication on the job (Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work), the source of argumentativeness (The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words), and general disagreements within families (I Only Say This Because I Love You). Now Tannen is turning her attention to improving communications between two groups that share one of the most complicated relationships of all: mothers and daughters.

You're Wearing That?: Understanding Daughters and Mothers in Conversation is yet another ambitious attempt to examine, understand, and resolve the long-standing communication difficulties that so often plague families. Tannen delineated the nature of the particularly thorny interactions between mothers and daughters in an article she recently wrote for The Washington Post. In her article, Tannen stated that "there is a special intensity to the mother-daughter relationship because talk -- particularly talk about personal topics -- plays a larger and more complex role in girls' and women's social lives than in boys' and men's. For girls and women, talk is the glue that holds a relationship together -- and the explosive that can blow it apart. That's why you can think you're having a perfectly amiable chat, then suddenly find yourself wounded by the shrapnel from an exploded conversation."

You're Wearing That? is her attempt to defuse such potential explosiveness, to get to the root of why daughters and mothers so often hit walls when relating to one another. Tannen's own strained relationship with her ailing mother was part of the impetus that caused her to begin asking the questions that this insightful book strives to answer. Along the way, she explored not only her own relationship with her mother but those of many others, as well. "I interviewed dozens of women of varied geographic, racial and cultural backgrounds," she explained in her article. "I had informal conversations or e-mail exchanges with countless others. The complaint I heard most often from daughters was, ‘My mother is always criticizing me.' The corresponding complaint from mothers was, ‘I can't open my mouth. She takes everything as criticism.' Both are right, but each sees only her perspective."

Once again, Tannen has proven her skills as a great communicator, and has penned another instant classic in the field of self-improvement. You're Wearing That? has already achieved bestseller status and inspired Miriam Wolf of the San Francisco Chronicle to call it "a book any mother would be proud her daughter wrote." Tannen should surely be proud that she has made such a significant and positive impact on those who have read her work.

Good To Know

Make no mistake: Deborah Tannen is not just another self-help guru. She has published an impressive body of work that includes 20 books and over 100 articles. She is also the recipient of five honorary doctorates.

Tannen may be most famous for her linguistics studies, but she has also published short stories, poems, personal essays, and plays. In fact, her first play, An Act of Devotion, was chosen for inclusion in The Best American Short Plays: 1993-1994.

The sage relationship advice that Tannen has imparted is not limited to the printed page. She has also lectured all over the world, once addressing an audience of U.S. senators and their spouses.

Some interesting outtakes from our interview with Tannen:

"I lived in Greece for several years; I speak Greek and consider Greece my second home. The first book I ever wrote was literary criticism about a modern Greek writer, Lilika Nakou."

"One of the most exciting experiences I have ever had was seeing a play I wrote produced by Horizons Theater in Washington, D.C. Another was having my play An Act of Devotion accepted and published in Best American Short Plays 1993-1994."

"I didn't start grad school in linguistics until I was 30. When I graduated from college, I had no ambitions other than to travel and not to go grad school. I worked for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Manhattan, lived with my parents in Brooklyn, and saved my money to go to Europe on a one-way ticket. My plan was to go around the world. But I got only as far as Greece, where I got a job teaching English. It was through teaching English as a second language that I first became aware of linguistics."

1. Hometown:
  
  Washington, D.C. metro area
1. Date of Birth:
  
  June 7, 1945
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Brooklyn, New York
1. Education:
  
  B.A., Harpur College, 1966, Wayne State University, 1970; M.A. in Linguistics, UC Berkeley, 1976; Ph.D., 1979

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The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words

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Overview

Editorial Reviews

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Product Details

Meet the Author

Deborah Tannen

Biography

Good To Know

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