Talk:Conversation
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[edit] Tannen easier to link if unmarked, maybe
Speaking in terms of:
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http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/nyt062093.htm
Marked Women, Unmarked Men
by D. Tannen
The New York Times Magazine, June 20, 1993
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I'm looking to find an unmarked presentation of the same ideas, to disseminate broadly in politically correct environments.
[edit] Tannen easier to link if bowdlerised, maybe
Google Wiki Tannen just recently brought me into this part of Wikipedia ...
Suddenly now I'm guessing the Wikipedia neutral point of view could give us a usefully bowdlerised slice of Dr. Tannen's work ... anyone agree?
The conversation I was having elsewhere included the snippet:
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Do you already know & love the sociolinguistic work of D. Tannen at George Washington U?
I can’t exaggerate how great I think that work is. It’s like structured programming from Wirth, communicating sequential processes from Hoare, or usability design from Norman – it gives understandable structure to what before appeared to be random data. The domain isn’t computer science, but instead conversation between Americans.
Tannen points out that Americans mostly split into two different verbal subcultures, one agonistic, one synergistic. Only in synergistic culture can you plainly say “Please help” or “I’m sorry that happened” or “How do I do that”. Agonistic culture says other things more plainly, but specifically those polite efforts towards working more together instead come across garbled, as “I’m incompetent”, “I’m insecure”, and “I’m clueless”.
But Tannen’s work since the 90’s may be less useful in politically correct environments than it could be, because the most compelling anecdotes come so often from contrasting female & male speech in the USA (and political correctness requires us not to make distinctions between persons & nations).
1987 | http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/tellit.htm | http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/popular.htm#popart | http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend
The less direct and more carefully neutral point of view, by contrast - "synergistic" and "agonistic" rather than "female" and "male" - fits into politically correct environments without objection.
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[edit] Talk Shows
I don't rightly see how TV talk shows are good examples of conversation. Indeed, far from it, I'd say. On "entertainment" talk shows, the "conversation" is often pre-scripted. On "current-event" talk shows, many of the guests are there simply to represent a certain known point of view, and not at all to listen to what anyone else has to say. So I certainly think that the reference to talk shows ought to be removed. In fact, someone might want to add a section summarizing critiques of talk shows. I know this issue is much discussed by some people, perhaps by Postman, among others.
Absolutely agree on this. It's also an issue that the mentioned talk shows are only known by US people, so it's not a good idea to mention these in the first line of the article. Moving the Talk Shows topic to the Types of Conversation section can be a temporary solution. Kuteni 13:58, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Phenomena?
Isn't it a bit odd to call it a phenomenon when "the conversation suddenly dies when everyone simultaneously runs out of things to say"?
It's obvious that when nobody has anything to say, nobody will be talking. This is neither a great leap in logic nor counterintuitive. I'd change it if I wasn't such a noob or had an idea what to change it to.
[edit] erm, excuse me
but wouldn't it be better if you just made it quick, LIKE INM REAL LIFE! which is the point, I thought, it would be best, to just say.
Conversation;
Taking turns to speak.
That's my idea.
[edit] topic of this article
Conversationhas many meaning, and only some of them are covered here. They overlap to such an extent that it might be better include them within a single article rather than attempt to compose an accurate disambiguation page. With all respect to the previous comments, there are both social and informational meanings to consider, and a great many links to multiple topics in sociology, psychology, politics, history, literature, and communication theory to insert, even though I may not be the best person to fill in all of this. Perhaps no indiviual person is. DGG 00:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Smalltalk
This page should mention "Smalltalk", or better still a new article "Smalltalk" should be created, with the already existing article of that name being moved to Smalltalk (software).-- ExpImptalkcon 23:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
