That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships

By Deborah Tannen

Book Overview

"Tannen combines a novelist's ear for the way people speak with a rare power of original analysis....Fascinating." --Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and The Mind's Eye In That's Not What I Meant , Deborah Tannen, renowned communication expert and author of the New York Times bestsellers You're Wearing THAT? and You Just Don't Understand , explores how conversational styles can make or break interpersonal relationships at home, at work, or at play. Fans of her books and the healthily curious reader interested in popular psychology, feminism, linguistics, or social sciences will be fascinated by Tannen's remarkable insights into unintentional conversational confusion. That's Not What I Meant is an essential guide to recognizing and adjusting what we say and how we are saying it in order to strengthen or save a relationship.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062062999
• ISBN13: 9780062062994
• Release Date: July 2011
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Effective Communication

Looking for better ways to communicate? Give insite on communication and how to communicate more effectively this book can help you create more effective messages and receive messages more effectively. A book I will try to read monthly to remind myself of how we "miscommunicate" simply by where we came from and who we interpret a message or a metamessage.

Seeing differently

HOwdy, I encourage you to buy this book, read it, and apply it. It really helped me in understanding myself and others. I think it helps all of us to see things we take for granted, and see things we never saw nor understood about ourselves. It is a good read, and handy for future reference.

You don't need this book (unless you want to better understand communication!)

This is an excellent book that explains many different ways that talking can go wrong despite our best intentions. Some of the material is counter-intuitive and knowing it will prevent many from trying over and over again using the wrong approach. How do two people end up in a restaurant neither one wants to be at? Why do longterm relationships encounter communication problems that may be worse than those in shorter term relationships? You do need this book.

A classic book about communication says it all!

Heard the taped version of THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT by Deborah Tannen . . . it'd an old book that's considered a classic because of what it has to say about communication . . . I think its subtitle says it all, "How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Your Relations with Others." I had not thought too much about this point until I heard the many examples that Tannen uses . . . whether in a relationship or going for a job, what we say--and don't say--can make or break things for us. One quote especially caught my attention: It's no good at all telling people what you want if what you want is for them to know without you telling them."

The focus of this book is right where it should be!

This book does indeed have a narrow focus, but the subject of that focus--interpersonal communication--has far reaching implications in any type of human relationship. As was correctly stated by a previous reviewer, relationships often suffer from a variety of different problems, ranging from differences in personal habits, to differences in values, to differences in religious views, but that is more or less a given in any relationship, especially one in which people share a domicile. However, it is how those relationship partners choose to "deal" with their inevitable differences "communicatively" that will determine the ultimate success or failure of their relationship. Do they choose to disagree or argue endlessly? Do they insult each other, or call each other names? Do they try to talk over each other,or become violent? Or do they approach each other in cooperative manner, open to each other's different ideas and viewpoints, with a willingness to learn from each other?What Tannen does in this book is show how some of the common communication differences between men and women in relationships have their basis in fundamental differences in the way men and women perceive each other, and relationships in general. And furthermore, that these fundamental differences, often hidden below the surface, can have profound, and often negative, effects on all kinds of relationships throughout a person's life, unless they are brought into the light of day. In effect, what Tannen is trying to do is to get people to be more aware of how they "habitually" communicate, the possible reasons why they communicate in those ways, and how the things they say and do may affect others. In effect, her goal is to empower people to begin--perhaps for the first time in their lives--to really "choose" how they communicate in relationships--rather than being a slave to destructive habits relied on since childhood. I strongly recommend this book for both men and women in ongoing close relationships. Once you have read it, you will never see communication in your relationships in quite the same way.