Deborah Tannen

Asian cultures... place great value on avoiding open expression of disagreement and conflict because they emphasize harmony.

I can't tell you how many times I heard from younger sisters that their older sisters were bossy and judgmental.

In the past, great communicators were great orators, but great communicators today sound conversational, and interrupting is common in conversation. And public discourse is now more about entertainment than enlightenment.

There is more excitement, more amazement when a first is born. No subsequent babies can have that impact.

The dynamic of fathers and sons seems to be more around competition regarding things such as knowledge, accomplishments, expertise.

My interest in the linguistic differences between women and men grew from research I conducted early in my career on conversations between speakers of different ethnic and regional backgrounds.

My job is to analyze conversations and discover why communications fail.

Conversations with sisters can spark extremes of anger or extremes of love. Everything said between sisters carries meaning not only from what was just said but from all the conversations that came before - and 'before' can span a lifetime. The layers of meaning combine profound connection with equally profound competition.

Sisters, to me, are fascinating because it is a unique connection of the coming together of connection and competition. The fact that you have these age differences is a built-in power struggle, and the fact that you're all trying to get attention and resources from the same parents creates competition.

You're not from Puerto Rico, so you should say Puerto Rico like all the other people from the place that you come from.

Back when the powerful 19th-century senator Henry Clay was called 'the great compromiser,' achieving a compromise really was considered great.

The political Right is particularly vehement when it comes to compromise. Conservatives are now strongly swayed by the Tea Party movement, whose clarion call is a refusal to compromise regardless of the practical consequences.