That's Not What I Meant!

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That's Not What I MEANT! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships
Not what I meant cover.jpg
Author Deborah Tannen
LanguageEnglish
Subject Relationships
Genre Nonfiction
PublisherBallantine Books
Publication date
March 12, 1987
Published in English
March 12, 1987
Pages224
ISBN 978-0-345-34090-0

That's Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships is Deborah Tannen's first book presenting, for a general audience, her linguistic approach to explaining how ways of speaking affect relationships. Predating by four years her phenomenally bestselling book about gender differences in ways of speaking, You Just Don't Understand , this book approaches communication and miscommunication from a linguistic point of view rather than a psychological one, emphasizing differences between the genders. The book lays out the linguistic devices and rituals that constitute "conversational style", such as indirectness, pacing, pausing, humor, overlap, and interruption, and shows their effects when styles differ. [1] [2] Tannen contrasted her book with Suzette Haden Elgin's The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series by saying, "Hers is sort of a verbal war manual. Mine is about verbal peacemaking". [3]

See also

References

  1. "That's Not What I Meant!". Deborah Tannen. Retrieved March 20, 2022.
  2. "That's Not What I Meant!". goodreads.
  3. "VERBAL: Teaching Them to Fight Back". The Los Angeles Times . December 17, 1987. p. 135.