Week 5: Response 1

Tannen gives us some good examples of different mother/daughter discussions, and how different phrases can be taken different ways. I believe she is trying to show us how mother/daughter communication is often difficult because when you have talked to someone for years, you can begin to catch on to the metamessage in your conversations with them more easily than someone you just met. I believe also that she is trying to show us how past experiences with a particular individual can affect what metamessage you pick up from them. Like how a mother may comment on what her daughter wears to dinner, as Tannen used for one example. I do agree with Tannen on how past experiences with a person can affect what message you pick up from them, even if it wasn’t the intended message. I believe also that mother/son communication can run into the same problems, especially if the son was closer to his mother than his father. Though sometimes I believe these metamessages will go unnoticed more often in a mother/son conversation, because men sometimes ignore, or do not recognize this metamessages as often.