Deborah Tannen, "The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue"

Deborah Tannen became interested in cross-cultural communication after she graduated from college in 1966 and taught English in Greece for two years. After earning a master's degree in English from Wayne State University and teaching writing in the United States for a few years, Tannen decided to pursue a doctorate in linguistics at Berkeley. It was just Tannen's luck that the first linguistics institute she attended focused on language in a social context. "Had I gone another summer," Tannen has said, "it's quite likely I would have concluded linguistics was not for me."

Tannen is currently University Professor on the faculty of the linguistics department at Georgetown University. Tannen, who has published sixteen books and more than eighty-five articles and is the recipient of four honorary doctorates, is best known as the author of You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1991), which is credited with bringing gender differences in communication style to the forefront of public awareness. This book was on the New York Times Bestsellers list for nearly four years, including eight months as number one, and has been translated into twenty-five languages.

"The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue" is drawn from one of Tannen's most recent books, The Argument Culture (1998), which examines the social, political, and emotional consequences of treating discussions as battles to be won or lost. Tannen's goal in this work is to get her readers to notice "the power of words to frame how you think about things, how you feel about things, how you perceive the world. The tendency in our culture to use war metaphors so pervasively, and to frame everything as a metaphorical battle, influences how we approach each other in our everyday lives."

Tannen, Deborah. "The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue." The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue. New York: Random House, 1998. 256-290.
Biographical information from Deborah Tannen's home page on the Georgetown University web site.
Quotation from Deborah Tannen, interview by Michael Toms, "Agreeing to Disagree: The Culture of Argument in America." New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network.

Links to Explore:

Deborah Tannen's home page: Tannen's home page includes biographical information on her publications in scholarly and popular venues. Interestingly, Tannen is also a creative writer. Visit PBS NewsHour Online for a 1998 David Gergen interview with Deborah Tannen; visit Ann On-Line to listen to Tannen discuss The Argument Culture.

'Thank You for Not Fighting: Deborah Tannen wants us to be nice': a critical review of Tannen's recent work by Larissa MacFarquhar.

State of the Debate: The Case Against 'Civility': In this 1998 essay, Randall Kennedy explores the issue of civility in the context of recent American history and politics and argues that "invigorated liberalism" requires "a willingness to fight loudly, openly, militantly, even rudely for policies and values that will increase freedom, equality, and happiness in America and around the world."

The Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought defines 'agonism' in ways that might complicate Tannen's treatment of the concept in her essay.

Question for Connecting:

• How does Malcolm Gladwell's discussion of the dynamics of social change confirm, contradict, or complicate Tannen's argument? Does Gladwell's account suggest that social change is decided by the strongest argument? Does debate even play a significant role? If public debate and rational deliberation have a marginal influence, why does the university place so high a premium on them? Have professors depicted the social world in ways that are flattering to themselves? In what ways is this depiction both accurate and inaccurate?

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