This revised edition of Deborah Tannen's first discourse analysis book, Conversational Style--first published in 1984--presents an approach to analyzing conversation that later became the hallmark and foundation of her extensive body of work in discourse analysis, including the monograph Talking Voices, as well as her well-known popular books You Just Don't Understand, That's Not What I Meant!, and Talking from 9 to 5, among others. Carefully examining the discourse of six speakers over the course of a two-and-a-half hour Thanksgiving dinner conversation, Tannen analyzes the features that make up the speakers' conversational styles, and in particular how aspects of what she calls a 'high-involvement style' have a positive effect when used with others who share the style, but a negative effect with those whose styles differ. This revised edition includes a new preface and an afterword in which Tannen discusses the book's place in the evolution of her work. Conversational Style is written in an accessible and non-technical style that should appeal to scholars and students of discourse analysis (in fields like linguistics, anthropology, communication, sociology, and psychology) as well as general readers fascinated by Tannen's popular work. This book is an ideal text for use in introductory classes in linguistics and discourse analysis.

This revised edition of Tannen's first discourse analysis book--first published in 1984--presents an approach to analyzing conversation that later became the hallmark and foundation of her extensive body of work in discourse analysis.

Abstract from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, University of Paderborn (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Contemporary Language Course Intermediate, language: English, abstract: This is a summary of Deborah Tannen's "That’s Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships", which was published in 1986. It deals with the language in conversations which can cause misunderstandings due to differing interpretations. Tannen divides her work into ten short chapters which fall under the ambit of four more general topics: Linguistic and Conversational Style, Conversational Strategies, Talking at Home: Conversational Style in Close Relationships and What You Can and Can’t Do with Conversational Style.

At home, on the job, in a personal relationship, it's often not what you say but how you say it that counts. Deborah Tannen revolutionized our thinking about relationships between women and men in her #1 bestseller You Just Don't Understand. In That's Not What I Meant!, the internationally renowned sociolinguist and expert on communication demonstrates how our conversational signals—voice level, pitch and intonation, rhythm and timing, even the simple turns of phrase we choose—are powerful factors in the success or failure of any relationship. Regional speech characteristics, ethnic and class backgrounds, age, and individual personality all contribute to diverse conversational styles that can lead to frustration and misplaced blame if ignored—but provide tools to improve relationships if they are understood. At once eye-opening, astute, and vastly entertaining, Tannen's classic work on interpersonal communication will help you to hear what isn't said and to recognize how your personal conversational style meshes or clashes with others. It will give you a new understanding of communication that will enable you to make the adjustments that can save a conversation . . . or a relationship.

This is an introduction to pragmatics, the study of how people make sense of each other linguistically. The author explains, and illustrates, basic concepts such as the co-operative principle, deixis, and speech acts, providing a clear, concise foundation for further study.

Presenting a linguistic approach to the analysis of conversational style, this book focuses on six speakers during a dinnerparty & shows how styles work in a positive manner when they are similar to one another & in a negative way when they are different.