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Summary Of You Just Don T Understand By Deborah Tannen

421 Words2 Pages

This may not be exactly what Dr. Montoya intended, but when I was reading about different styles of communication it brought to mind my entire relationship with my husband. Communication and the different styles we prefer have been an issue for us for many years so much so that ten years ago we both agreed to read the book, You Just Don’t Understand, by Deborah Tannen. Different terms were used in this book to discuss a similar phenomenon. Where Ting-Toomey and Chung’s book discusses high context and low context cultures, Tannen, discusses metamessages and social roles between men and women. Tannen spends a large portion of this book discussing and affirming many stereotypes of men and women. Men want to “get to the point” quickly, while women feel it necessary to attend to the relationship first. Ting-Toomey and Chung make a similar distinction between low context and high context communication (123). I will frequently begin any request with what my husband says is a wishy-washy comment such as, “If it isn’t too much trouble,” or “Do you think it …show more content…

(Hints don’t really work anyway!) I try also not to take it personal when he really doesn’t care to have a leisurely chat about our day at work. If it doesn’t really serve a real direct function, he is not terribly interested. Of course, at times, he adapts his style to mine. This discussion leads me to wonder if the generalizations that are made about cultures in this and other books and resources are more focused on the style of men’s communication in that culture. My husband certainly fits the bill in regards to the communication style of Americans as listed in the Ting-Toomey and Chung book. Yet mine does not. Could it be that I am more traveled? That my undergrad degree is International Studies? I really don’t think so. From Deborah Tannen’s analysis, I am quite typical of women in the

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