Well, it isn't her book that I have to pick up, but I just did a search for her in the library catalogue and it came up with some things that look like they would be really useful (if I ever get to the library). Thanks :) Erin ----- Original Message ----- From: <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 12:06 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Dinner Talk > > In a message dated 7/29/2004 7:06:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, > erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx writes: > Then again, who really wants to > read a book called Dinner Talk: Cultural Patterns of Conversation > (something > like that) anyway? > > > ----- > > I think that's Deborah Tannen? > > I like her quite a bit (+> a lot). > > Matter of fact, have her book on the study (based on her PhD) of a > four-participant Thanksgiving Dinner she recorded (she included) where she reanalyzes > the Gricean 'boys' versus the 'Strawsonian' girls: > > Female conversationalists -- in that Thanksgiving Dinner -- as I recall, > work, for Tannen, along Strawson's lines of 'existence presupposition' (the old > dilemma of whether the king of France _can_ be bald if he doesn't exist). > Gricean males, on the other hand, can implicaturally speak (to no end) of > nonexistent entities and _with a straight face_ over turkey and desserts. Made for > an interesting read. > > Tannen later went on to analyse how race influences everthing: anglos (or > 'Anglo's', as Geary would not write it) converse mainly in English -- and use > 'understatement' as _the_ major implicature -- while other races converse in > other 'languages' (and can be much more explicit -- e.g. the French). > > Tannen contributed an essay to _Legacy of Grice_ published by the Berkeley > Linguistics Society. > > Cheers, > > JL > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, > digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html