By understanding the reason for miscommunication (along gender lines), we can, presumably, avoid such problems in future. This is the entire premise the extract from Tannen is based on. The reasons for miscommunication, she suggests, emerge primarily from the differences in attitudes that men and women have towards communication; to men, communication is a vehicle through which they express their dominance in a social hierarchy, or to gain information, while women regard communication as a medium for more personal and emotional interaction. While the meaning of words remains unchanged, the context in which a man and a woman frame their interaction differs, causing them to react differently.
As it is, the article does not so much attempt to analyse communication between genders with academic rigour, than to study and explain occurrences of miscommunication, and empower the reader with a greater understanding of the topic. Consequently, Tannen’s article is full of humourous anecdotes that illustrate the various ways in which men and woman think and react differently. These anecdotes emotionally engage the target audience (the casual reader who wishes to understand and avoid gender-based miscommunication), allowing the reader to empathise with the characters in the situations given, and hence, to relate the situation to his or her own life. This enables the reader to apply to lessons learned from each anecdote. These different episodes are funny, and by using sparse detail, they seem all the more commonplace, as general templates which miscommunication roughly follows. This use of humour and simple explanation makes this light reading, which is no doubt best suited for a wide and general audience.
Problematically, I cannot quite find myself agreeing with Tannen, if only because I feel the division of attitudes based on gender seems to be a rather artificial divide, and more specifically, that the specific analysis (to some extent), does cripple an article that attempts to produce a general principle.
The foundational assumption on which the entire article hinges on is this (unspoken) idea that the miscommunication issues are, indeed, attributable to gender. It is obviously unfair to expect Tannen to prove that they are, given this is not the purpose of her article. However, at the most basic level, her analysis is dependent on this claim – a failure to accept the claim results in a difficulty in accepting the main thrust of the article, and the analysis it offers. Her arguments only stand should the reader first accept the claim, and thus the analytical framework it provides. If the reader cannot accept that the miscommunication in each portrayed situation is due to separate gender attitudes, then the anecdotes become examples of miscommunication between different people, which is a separate affair that does not involve gender. Hence, to some extent, it may be important to consider the validity of the assumption that it is gender perspectives which cause misunderstandings.
My inability to accept this assumption makes it problematic for me to therefore accept her given analysis. Rather than attributing miscommunication to problems of gender attitudes when it comes to framing words in a context, and thus interpreting them (for example, how a husband and wife can understand the sentence “Would you like to stop for a coffee?” and yet, at the same time, crucially misframe the sentence as an inquiry, or a subtle request), it seems equally feasible to consider different attitudes as the cause of the misunderstanding. The problem then, is not because the male and the female contextualise statements differently, but that some people tend to be far more direct, while others do not like to be bossy. It is equally conceivable that culture and upbringing has a role to play, where the Asian may be more comfortable with indirect speech, as it is rude to impose, while a person from a more liberal culture may be predisposed towards perceiving such questions exactly as they seem to be.
To some extent, I perceive this as an issue of interpretation, and not quite one of gender. In particular, the essential ability that all decent literature students must posses; the ability to pick up the different subtle nuances that communication often involves. This ability (or inability) seems less gender-based than personality-based (if we do not consider issues of training).
Tannen freely acknowledges there are bound to be exceptions with the caveat that it is impossible to categorise all men and women. This is indeed a hazard of using very specific anecdotes and inductively obtaining a general trend or a general argument from them – which, problematically, is exactly what Tannen does, to some extent, in this article. By analysing the specific examples of particular interactions between particular couples, we are to draw a general principle by which genders interact, and miscommunicate. This process leaves me a little wary, because specific scenarios are not often sufficiently thorough enough as data for general rules to be derived from them. Whether the rules deal with all men and women or most men and women – the gap between the specific and the general is still troubling.
It is, however, questionable if these issues are significant. My issues probably arise from disdain for gender-specific analysis, which I consider to be oversimplistic, and an artificial construct when it comes to understanding personal attitudes. Presumably as well, I probably just don’t work well with readings that can be classified under popular culture, given that my main problems with Tannen seem to be more related to argumentation, which, given her purpose, is undoubtedly rather unfair of me. More essentially, it really doesn’t matter, because given the point of Tannen’s article is about explaining how miscommunication arises and how to avoid such miscommunication, then a reader who even picks up her article should, at least, have partially accepted some idea of miscommunication caused by gender differences.
The problem of specificity still holds, however, although it may not be so important to prove the link between gender and miscommunication. (Granted, it is a tall order, in any case.) Drawing a general lesson from each anecdote to apply in interactions with the opposite gender is still dangerous, if only because it assumes most general interactions follow the same rule. In general, however, Tannen advocates understanding, and tolerance. These two principles, I agree, should definitely stand anyone in good stead.
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