I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You're All Adults
Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You're All Adults
- Paperback
368 pages
- Release Date
15 May 2002
Summary
Why do grown up women feel constantly criticized by their mothers, while mothers feel that around their grown daughters they can’t open their mouths? Why do we feel like kids again when we visit our parents, and leave family reunions feeling left ot or subtly put down? Whether it’s teens or full grown children, older adult parents, sisters and brothers or in-laws, talking to family members can yield both comfort and pain. In this eye opening new book, bestselling author Deborah Tannen turns her attention to how talk in families works-or fails- to create, complicate, and improve our most intimate relationships. As Tannen shows, the first step in decoding family talk is to separete word meanings, or messages, from what she calls “heart meanings”, or metamessages-unstated but powerful meanings we glean not only from words spoken but also from tone of voice, phrasing, or family history. Using real conversations, she shows how innocent (or not so innocent) remarks can lead to hurt feelings, and how small arguments can escalate into fights and even family feuds. Uncovering hidden meanings, opening lines of communications to teens, dealing with family secrets - it’s all here, presented in Tannen’s clear and entertaining trademark style.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780345407528 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0345407520 |
| Author: | Deborah Tannen |
| Publisher: | Ballantine Books |
| Imprint: | Ballantine Books Inc. |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 368 |
| Release Date: | 15 May 2002 |
| Weight: | 499g |
| Dimensions: | 25mm x 140mm x 216mm |
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Critics Review
Praise for You Just Don’t Understand “Tannen has a marvelous ear for the way real people express themselves and a scientist’s command of the inner structure of speech and human relationships.” –Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times
“Goes a long way toward explaining why perfectly wonderful men and women behave in ways that baffle their partners.” – Judy Mann, The Washington Post
“This book, written by a linguistics expert so you have to believe she knows what she’s talking about could be the Rosetta Stone that deciphers the miscommunication between the sexes.” – Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle
“This book will help many put their problems of communication with the opposite sex in manageable perspective.” – Ruth Rose, The New York Times Book Review
“Deborah Tannen combines a novelist’s ear for the way people speak with a rare power of original analysis. It is this that makes her an extraordinary sociolinguist, and… her book such a fascinating look at that crucial social cement, conversation.” – Oliver Sacks
Deborah Tannen
Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. She is the author of several books and a frequent guest on Oprah and other US TV programmes.
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