This Assignment was to analyze an actual relationship that illustrates differences in women's and men's converstaional styles as described by Tannen's Rapport vs. Report talk.
Reflection
1. How does this assignment illustrate the growth/change/progress you have made in this class?
This assignment shows the growth I have made by the way I now understand the theories and concepts, I’m able to use them and apply them to situations in my life. As well simply the approach that I took to write this paper was much more focused on the theories and how they relate to me.
2. How can you apply what you’ve learned in this class to other classes, to the workplace and to other areas of your life?
This will apply to everything that I do, communication is at the root of all our relationships and interactions with each other. This has helped me to better communicate in many of my other classes, because I now have a better understanding of communication and why people communicate in certain ways. Its also affected the way I work in the world, it has enhanced my abilities at my job, and helped me to be a better communicator with co-workers, friends, and family. It will all around shape what I can achieve in my life.
Genderlect Styles
Description of the Relationship
The relationship I will use to show an example of this theory is with my younger sister. She’s 19 and the youngest of our family. We both live at home and we are always around each other. Our relationship is full of love and kindness towards each other, but we have always fought and get on each other’s nerves. As she’s the youngest she of course gets a lot of the attention and is most often sided by our parents. There will always be that feeling like she’s still a baby and always gets to be right. Fights often occur between us over simple things, from why she wont try new foods, to how she’s always in the same place on the couch watching the same show everyday I come back to the house. Most of the time the first few comments I give to elicit a response are taken lightly but as I continue to nag and over exaggerate the situation she becomes more irritated. These fights are rarely ever serious but can change our moods quite easily. My position in the whole experience is to be the bigger brother with all the power and to control the situation by using Report talk as Griffin said “is the typical monologic style of men, which seeks to command attention convey information, and win arguments” (Griffin 433). The objective of this paper will be to analyze our relationship to see how she fights because she’s angry, while I do it for fun. As well how she seeks to be more expressive, and use her feelings, when I simply report the facts and be more instrumental. Our Relationship doesn’t always follow these same patterns but changes as we use different styles of communicating. We’ll also see how each of us copes with all of our different conversational styles and how an understanding of someone else’s style can helps us figure out ways to help improve and strengthen our relationships.
Conversation Styles
Anger vs. Fun
The main difference between us in most of our situations is that I fight for fun, when she fights because she’s angry. Almost everyday we’ll have an example of this. From the moment I get home I fight because I’m bored, and its something fun to do, she’ll then retaliate back to the fight with anger instead of reciprocating the same feeling of fun. For an example, almost every time we eat dinner together it always gets brought up that she only eats the same few things for every meal. I’ll continue to push the situation to see if I can get her to try something new, I’ll fight and argue and even offer money to get her to respond. I do all this in fun just to make a joke out of how she won’t broaden her horizons. Her response is always full of emotion and anger because we continue to push her. This could be driven by men’s desire for competition. A series of psychology studies suggest that men are more competitive than women. While boys spend most of their time at competitive games, girls select activities where there is no winner and no clear end point. This difference increases through puberty, and by adulthood more men than women describe themselves as competitive (Campbell 2002).
Feelings vs. Facts
I would believe that her attitude towards fighting would be caused by a woman’s need to be more expressive, and to use feelings. Most everything for a woman is attached to feelings, where as a man uses more of the facts, which don’t change his mood as much. Men tend to use more logos in their conversations, gaining credibility from their facts, and changing a persons mind as well as their own. Women seem to stick to more of the pathos, by using their feelings and emotions to control situations. My sister in hopes to change the situation uses her emotions and feelings of anger to try and win the argument, rather then looking at the facts. I on the other hand leave most of my emotions out and focus on the facts to prove my point. Men tend to use their logic, while women like to kick and scream. Eventually someone will give in and switch their conversational style to accommodate for the other person and meet on equal ground. In the same situation with my sister and I, I’ll refer to many facts about how she loves all the foods separately like with lasagna, made of noodles, tomato sauce, cheese, and ground beef, all things she loves, but when they’re all together she’ll deny that its good! I always have the best facts to support my claims, but all she can respond with are emotions and how she feels about it. Nothing that is tied to facts or details, it all just revolves around what makes her feel the best. One time I asked her if she liked a certain food, she immediately said that she didn’t, I then asked her if she had tried it yet? Again her answer was no. I then addressed the point of how can she say she doesn’t like something that she’s never tried, a logical fact, which left her puzzled.
Three times a day I hear her say I don’t feel good, I feel this way, all that she does is about feelings and emotions, there is never any specific reason to why she feels that way. Their style of conversation is all centered on their feelings, which is why I think anger is a result of their conflicts.
Naturally I always want to be right, or have the best answer. She on the other hand would rather have a connection and agree or be the boss by using emotional control. This shows our difference in conversational styles. As stated by griffin of what Tannen said, “More then anything else women seek human connection; [and] men are concerned mainly with status”(Griffin 432). There are so many differences in the way my sister and I interact, but we don’t always use the same styles, and often come to agreements by using each other’s styles.
Communication Strategies
I cope with our differences in styles very easily, maybe
that’s because I’ve already dealt with older brothers and sisters before and
have more practice, so her styles don’t affect me as much. The main way I cope with her styles is
to never let the conversation get out of hand or past a certain point, I know
very well where her breaking points are, and how far I can push her. I’m still sensitive and use my feelings
and empathy to put myself in her shoes, as to not let myself go past that point
of destruction. This is a good
preventative action so I don’t permanently ruin our relationship, or hurt her
feelings too much. This strategy has gotten us through the years, even though
the fights still occur they never go past a certain point. Other ways that help me cope with our
situations is by helping her understand where my facts are coming from and
helping her gain some logos, to see it from my point of view. I find this effective, as long as she is
willing to listen and finds the information credible.
On her side, her coping methods usually begin with, “mom!” Which is probably the best coping method of all in a family. It can either stop the argument and leaves us both equal, or gets me punished in some sort of way. That’s an advantage she has being the youngest, and a girl. This changes my behavior, but when I’m right this tends to bother me, how can I lose the power even though I’m right? Another way she has learned to cope is by using facts against me, when she was younger I had most the power with the facts, but as she gained more knowledge she started to get some firepower and use more of a factual style of fighting. This has helped to change her view about fighting, that it wasn’t all because of anger. Now the fun starts to show through with a game of who can find the most credible facts to silence the other. Over all the communication in our relationship could be improved in many ways, first, by gaining more insight on the others style, by practicing it, and understanding why they act in a certain way. I’ve learned that my sister will almost always fight out of anger, I’ll make sure she knows that its for fun, so she doesn’t have to use her emotions but can see why I’m doing it. As well I could learn to be more sensitive and tap into my feelings more often, so I can feel more how she feels. Specifically by avoiding the confrontation of fighting for fun.
Power
As I explained in the relationship, I’m the older brother
and the older brothers almost always tend to have the upper hand. That might be
explained by more knowledge, and the simple fact of age. Those older then you
tend to have more of an influence and are looked up to. The power usually tends to rest with me
in most situations, until she brings in someone with higher authority like my
mom, or even my older brother. The
power often shifts between the both of us depending on what the conversations
are about, and who is involved.
Her sense of power comes from the fact that she’s the youngest, the baby
of the family, so everyone looks out for her. The power is actually quite equal in the first place, other
members of the family help to equalize and maintain a balance.
Conclusion
It has been
interesting to see the different styles that my sister and I use in our
conversations, and as well how we both have learned to use each other’s. Just as Tannen suggested, that it is
important for successful communication to be able to use both styles, be
bi-lingual (Tannen). I’ve learned
the importance of seeing both sides of the relationship, and how using all of
those skills can make you much more successful in your relationships. As we begin a relationship we can start
by finding out what kind of styles they use, so we can cope with them and match
them to improve our communication.
Works Cited
Campbell, Anne, A Mind of Her Own: The Evolutionary Psychology of Women, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Griffin, Em, Communication: A First Look at Communication Theory. 7th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2006.
Tannen, Deborah “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Converstaion.” New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1990.
