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Analyzing Discourse Data
Spring 2018 | Professor Cecelia Cutler | (LING 79600) | at the Graduate Center
While reading your commentary, I could not help but think of Deborah Tannen’s book, That’s Not What I Meant!, where Tannen discusses all the ways miscommunication takes place and how it really comes down to issues with expectations. We rather naively assume during conversations that others have the same expectations as we do, or are coming from the same understanding as we are. We also tend to expect that our nuances have the same meaning to others and can clearly be identified when a lot of times they are not picked up on. I wonder if we can step outside of ourselves to see how our expectations skew our interpretation of conversations and if doing so could prevent future miscommunication. It sounds simple enough in theory, but our expectations are deeply embedded in our way of generating responses to others; it would be arduous to try to reflect on our expectations constantly before responding to others.