Deborah Tannen

Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition overweighted. ”

Conflict can't be avoided in our public lives any more than we can avoid conflict with people we love. One of the great strengths of our society is that we can express these conflicts openly. ”

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. ”