Deborah Tannen is the author of You Just Don't Understand, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for
nearly four years, including eight months at number one, and has been translated into twenty-six languages. Among
her many books are The Argument Culture, Talking from 9 to 5, and That's Not What I Meant! A linguistics professor
at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., she is a frequent guest on such radio and television shows as The
Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, Good Morning America, CNN's TalkBack Live, and NPR's All Things Considered.
Review
"Tannen has a marvelous ear for the way real people express themselves and a scientist's command of the
inner structure of speech and human relationships."
--Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times
"Goes a long way toward explaining why perfectly wonderful men and women behave in ways that baffle their
partners."
-- Judy Mann, The Washington Post
"This book, written by a linguistics expert so you have to believe she knows what she's talking about could
be the Rosetta Stone that deciphers the miscommunication between the sexes."
-- Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle
"This book will help many put their problems of communication with the opposite sex in manageable perspective."
-- Ruth Rose, The New York Times Book Review
"Deborah Tannen combines a novelist's ear for the way people speak with a rare power of original analysis.
It is this that makes her an extraordinary sociolinguist, and... her book such a fascinating look at that crucial
social cement, conversation."
-- Oliver Sacks
Publisher Web Site, January, 2003
Summary
Why does talk in families so often go in circles, leaving us tied up in knots? In this illuminating book, Deborah
Tannen, the linguist and and bestselling author of You Just Don't Understand and many other books, reveals why
talking to family members is so often painful and problematic even when we're all adults. Searching for signs of
acceptance and belonging, we find signs of disapproval and rejection. Why do the seeds of family love so often
yield a harvest of criticism and judgment? In I Only Say This Because I Love You, Tannen shows how important it
is, in family talk, to learn to separate word meanings, or messages, from heart meanings, or metamessages � unstated
but powerful meanings that come from the history of our relationships and the way things are said. Presenting real
conversations from people's lives, Tannen reveals what is actually going on in family talk, including how family
conversations must balance the longing for connection with the desire for control, as we struggle to be close without
giving up our freedom.
This eye-opening book explains why grown women so often feel criticized by their mothers; and why mothers feel
they can't open their mouths around their grown daughters; why growing up male or female, or as an older or younger
sibling, results in different experiences of family that persist throughout our lives; and much, much more. By
helping us to understand and redefine family talk, Tannen provides the tools to improve relationships with family
members of every age.