The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words by Deborah Tannen

Author:Deborah Tannen [Tannen, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Customs & Traditions, Popular Culture, Reference
ISBN: 9780307765536
Amazon: B009JU5GCY
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2012-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

Emily prevented future attacks by agreeing with Alice’s statement about the balloon and inviting her to join their play. But by doing the inviting, Emily maintained her position as the dominant friend, giving Alice something while keeping something for herself.

One last example from my students’ observations shows similar patterns among older boys and girls who attended a co-ed party (but kept apart from each other). Aiyana Hoffman took several other class members with her to attend her twelve-year-old cousin’s birthday party. There was a lot of commotion at the party because one girl (I’ll call her Mary) said something that hurt the feelings of another girl (I’ll call her Sue). Sue felt so bad, she went into the bathroom, crying. The other girls started going in and out of the bathroom to check on Sue, find out what was wrong, and try to comfort her. Sue’s best friend, Kate, seemed to be in charge, speaking privately with all the other girls, reporting on Sue’s feelings, and even talking privately with Mary, the girl who had hurt Sue’s feelings.

At the same time that the girls were caught up in this drama, the boys were playing video games and (as another student observer, Cortney Howard, put it) “goofing off.” One boy (I’ll call him Jason) was giving another boy (Joe) a hard time, and two other boys joined in. Their conversation, as Cortney wrote it down, went like this:

JASON: So what’s up with Karen? She’s got you all whooped.

JOE: No, dude, she’s just some girl, nothin’ special. I ain’t whooped.

JASON: Yeah, you’ve been calling her, I saw you talking to her on the playground after school last week, too.

JOE: What are you talking about? I was just getting the math homework, that’s all.

JASON: Horse crap! You like her!

SAM: Look, man, he’s turning red! You’re turning red! Haha!

BOBBY: You wimp, you’re red all over that ugly face of yours!

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