Plain speaking
Best-selling linguist Dr Deborah Tannen believes teachers can benefit from thinking more about the words they choose in the classroom
Common wisdom dictates that being both a respected academic and selling millions of books is almost impossible. Producing mass-market paperbacks that top the best-seller lists immediately loses you the respect of your academic peers, while devoting yourself on the other hand to research and theory means the average reader won’t be able to relate to your writing.
Dr Deborah Tannen is one of only a handful of academics in the world who can claim to have successfully combined both roles. Her groundbreaking book You Just Don’t Understand, published in 1990, introduced the concept of linguistics to a general audience and spent four years on the New York Times Best Seller list, including eight months at number one. It was translated into more than 200 languages and made her a media sensation, in demand from newspapers and television channels across the globe. Even so, she has retained her academic credibility, regularly being cited as one of the world’s leading linguists and publishing reports and giving lectures to scholarly audiences in her role as professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA.
Born in New York in 1945, Dr Tannen’s academic career has taken her to Princeton University as well as a number of prestigious US research centres, and she has written extensively about the development of language and its importance in a cultural context. Her most notable achievement, however, may be to make millions of people reconsider the way they communicate with their families, friends and colleagues.
In You Just Don’t Understand and her earlier work, That’s Not What I Meant, she explores the concept of the meta-message – the overall effect of the words we say, our tone of voice, the context of the conversation and the physical signals we send – and shows how common misunderstandings occur when we give an unintended meta-message while trying to be conciliatory or neutral.
Both books generated huge interest, but Dr Tannen isn’t surprised by the impact of linguistics:
“Whether the world seems a pleasant or hostile place is largely the result of the cumulative impression of seemingly insignificant daily encounters… Many of our motives, so obvious to us, are never perceived by the people we talk to. Many instances of rudeness, stubbornness, inconsiderateness or refusal to co-operate are really caused by differences in conversational style.”
IB World: How has your work as a linguist affected the way you teach?
Deborah Tannen Before I worked on gender specifically, my field was comparing speech and conversation style. One thing that leaped out at me was the differences in the way people pace and pause in their speech. When I’m in front of a class, I need to take into account the different amounts of time students need when I ask a question or they need to raise their hands. I grew up in New York and I’m fast-paced. When I used to ask a question, if nobody immediately raised their hand I’d say ‘great’ and move on, but I soon became aware that maybe I needed to allow more time for some people to respond.
What part does gender play?
Women won’t raise their hands until they’ve made up their minds what they’re going to say is smart. Men raise their hands more quickly because they want the floor.
Let me give you an example. Once, at a family celebration, my 10-year-old nephew said something touching and articulate. I asked him if he’d planned to say it. He said “no, it’s like when you’re in class and you raise your hand and the teacher picks you and then you have to think of something to say.” That’s how men often think.
Don’t women feel confident enough to speak up?
It’s partly down to expectations, the way your friends are behaving. Women notice how people are watched when they speak out. They know they are being watched by their peers, whereas boys get credit for speaking out. So many things are going on [with women]. Maybe they expect others to take the floor and they’re just waiting their turn or waiting to be asked.
Myra and David Saker wrote a book called Failing At Fairness in which they found teachers were more likely to ask difficult questions of boys than girls and more likely to ask follow-up questions too. I also remember Lani Guinier [Harvard Law School professor and former IB World cover interviewee] writing that when she was in law school, female students who spoke up were ridiculed behind their backs. And that’s in law school! Girls are aware of that sort of thing – they don’t want that kind of attention.
I have 27 students in my current class and the first time I asked a question, one guy’s hand went up. The same guy’s hand went up the next time, too. Eventually I had to speak to him and say “you know, you don’t have to answer every question”. He was fine with that, but I’ve learned that sometimes you need to say it.
Are you in favour of single-sex schooling from a linguistic viewpoint?
Yes I am. There’s a lot of research to say that women who attend single-sex schools do better in later life.
What else can teachers do to be as inclusive as possible in the classroom?
I’ve learned to be aware of whether you’re asking people to critique in a negative style or a positive one. I always say “I’d like to hear your comments”. In many classes, teachers focus on a negative critique: “You read this article – now what’s wrong with it?” I also know there are some students who’ll only speak in small groups, so several times a term I split them up into smaller groups to make sure everyone has a chance to speak.
You should be aware of things like sexism and it’s good to read the research that’s available. Be aware that people have different conversational styles and give extra time for some students to speak. Build in ways for people to communicate in small groups or in writing – let them write something for you at the end of class if they have any questions, for instance.
Can you take inclusivity too far?
We all want to treat everybody fairly, but we all have moments we can’t control. We can’t ignore people’s differences. And after all, there will be some students you like and some you don’t. The way to deal with it is to build in some controls.
When students are not learning or participating in their primary language, what extra care needs to be taken to ensure they are included?
Personally, I don’t grade on class participation. It’s easy for some and hard for others to take part [in the classroom]. Of course, it becomes tougher when you evaluate writing. I ask for final papers to be edited by a native speaker. It’s a good thing to tell foreign students that you can help them and if they have any questions they only have to ask.
Do we worry too much about the use of correct grammar?
Linguists always say that, because we love to distinguish ourselves from English teachers! I taught English as a Second Language in Greece and I was very influenced by the move away from error correction. Imagine if you were learning a physical skill and every time you made a mistake someone wrapped you across the knuckles. You’d never learn.
In That’s Not What I Meant, you claim learning about conversational styles can change people’s lives. How?
Most people who read my books don’t realise they are learning about linguistics. They’re learning to take confusion and anger out of their lives by ‘catching’ themselves in certain situations. It can make a huge difference to them. A woman came up to me at a book signing and said ‘thank you for giving me my daughter back’. That blows my mind.
Will increasing globalization help make the traditional conversational traits of different ethnic groups less pronounced, leading to greater understanding?
I don’t necessarily think so. We have this idea that if you’re exposed to people who come from different backgrounds, you’ll get to know them better and be more likely to understand them as a result. But it’s often the case that people who are exposed to others from different cultures get frustrated that they don’t understand them better – and they can’t work out what has caused that misunderstanding. In that situation, they will tend to blame it all on the other person.
So can linguistics change the world?
Almost everything comes down, on some level, to communication. If we could better understand each other’s motives, almost any problem could be solved. But just talking more won’t solve it.
