That's Not What I Meant

The Sociolinguistics of Everyday Conversation - The Modern Scholar

By: Professor Deborah Tannen

Narrated by: Deborah Tannen

This series of lectures draws on linguistics, or the scientific study of language, to show the many ways in which language has a profound effect upon human relationships. These lectures address the various aspects and implications of what Professor Tannen calls "conversational style". It also looks at the dynamics of specific situations, such as the workplace and classroom, where the role of conversational style is of particular importance.

A person's conversational style includes far more than the words that he or she speaks. Each conversation is composed of contextual cues, unspoken messages, body language, and the rhythms of speech. For the most part, people communicate without a conscious focus on the subtleties of language. Through this course, the complexities of language, and all that language entails, will become more apparent.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2004 Deborah Tannen (P)2004 Recorded Books

Excellent material, but is in lecture format

Excellent material, but is in lecture format. The entire work teaches about differences in conversational style issues. Mine tends toward a more anecdotal story telling style, so I found "You Just Don't Understand" (by Tannen as well) more enjoyable, but as that focused specific on male/female disconnect, it did not cover such a wide range of styles and customs in conversation as this work. This is much better for a serious student of the topic as it also teaches specific terms for each type of communication difference making other works on the topic easier to understand. Probably should be 5 stars, but I just didn't enjoy it quite as much as the other by by the same author.

Should be required reading in schools worldwide

Loved it, author's voice is a great plus as well. Wish I had known at least some of this at an earlier age. Oh well, live and learn. Will be spreading the word. Do yourself and those around you a favor and listen, please pretty please?

Tannen is terrific

I really appreciate her insights though the format of a lecture is a little odd for me.

Meh

Oddly, the author has two "That's Not What I meant" on Audible, of different lengths.
Recording of college lectures. Recycles material from her other books.
There are some good points here to help illustrate how communication frustrations are often simply due to different communication styles, usually due to a cultural background or gender. (It does, however, overlook that sometimes people are just jerks.) This is not a carefully planned out mass market book. This feels like a quick cash grab - time to churn out another book, ok, record the lectures you're already given and ship it out.

Great Great book

That's not what I meant is a really humbling eye opener; a requisite antidote to most misunderstandings and disagreements that arise in everyday conversations. It's really been an interesting journey listening to this audio book