Questions for “He Said, She Said”

1. Does it make sense to talk about conversation between men and women as “cross-cultural communication?”

2. How in the video does Tannen build on her work on conversational style that we’ve already been introduced to?

3. Girls are into connection, boys are into status (a bit of oversimplification here, admittedly). This is one of Tannen’s fundamental arguments. Do you agree? How does this premise shape how she thinks about:

• The complexities of directness and indirectness in a person’s message
• Message and meta-message
• Public talk vs. private talk
• Ritual vs. real opposition in personal relations (what does she mean by “re-frame” and “re-key?)
• Nagging
• Equality and domination as operating principles between women and men

4. So, again, this is another of Tannen’s conversational style analyses. Is there a “policy” recommendation here, or a practical insight at the end of it all? Can we use this kind of analysis to improve understanding?