I think of myself as a writer as much as I think of myself as a linguist and an academic. I really enjoy writing - playing with language and getting just the right metaphor.

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• Deborah Tannen:

  I am the youngest of three girls. My first linguistics book was a study of 'New York Jewish convers

• Deborah Tannen:

  Conversations with sisters can spark extremes of anger or extremes of love. Everything said between

• Deborah Tannen:

  A sister is someone who owns part of what you own: a house, perhaps, or a less tangible legacy, lik

• Deborah Tannen:

  The word 'sister' evokes an ideal of connection and support, like the friendships that made Rebecca

• Deborah Tannen:

  When women told me they'd always wished they had a sister, they were thinking of this ideal of mutu

• Deborah Tannen:

  Mothers and daughters find in each other the source of great comfort but also of great pain. We tal

• Deborah Tannen:

  American popular culture, like individuals in daily life, tends to either romanticize or demonize m

• Deborah Tannen:

  Women as mothers grapple with corresponding contradictions. The adoration they feel for their grown

• Deborah Tannen:

  When daughters react with annoyance or even anger at the smallest, seemingly innocent remarks, moth

• Deborah Tannen:

  In this world, conversations are negotiations for closeness in which people try to seek and give co