The Agrument Culture
UDWPA Questions for April, 2011
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Question 1 In her essay “The Argument Culture,” Deborah Tannen claims, “the argument culture urges us to approach the world, and the people in it, in an adversarial frame of mind.”
Do you agree with Tannen’s observation and with her claim that the impacts of this approach are negative?
Write an essay that answers this question with specific reference to Tannen’s text. Your essay should include your own defensible thesis statement and reasons and examples from your studies, experience, or observations that develop and support it.
OR
Question 2. In her essay “The Argument Culture,” Deborah Tannen argues that we need to “find ways to change the argument culture to a dialogue culture.” Explain how this change could be made, and how your solution(s) would address the problems Tannen describes.
Write an essay that answers this question with specific reference to Tannen’s text. Your essay should include your own defensible thesis statement and reasons and examples from your studies, experience, or observations that develop and support it.
DEBORAH TANNEN
A professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, Deborah Tannen is also a best-selling author of many books on discourse and gender, including Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends (1984), You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1990), Talking from 9 to 5 (1994), and The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue (1998). Throughout her career, Tannen has focused on how men and women have different conversational habits and assumptions, whether they talk on the job or at home.
THE ARGUMENT CULTURE
Balance. Debate. Listening to both sides. Who could question these noble American traditions? Yet today, these principles have been distorted. Without thinking, we have plunged headfirst into what I call the "argument culture." The argument culture urges us to
Scroll down for April Udwpa Text
Question 1 In her essay “The Argument Culture,” Deborah Tannen claims, “the argument culture urges us to approach the world, and the people in it, in an adversarial frame of mind.”
Do you agree with Tannen’s observation and with her claim that the impacts of this approach are negative?
Write an essay that answers this question with specific reference to Tannen’s text. Your essay should include your own defensible thesis statement and reasons and examples from your studies, experience, or observations that develop and support it.
OR
Question 2. In her essay “The Argument Culture,” Deborah Tannen argues that we need to “find ways to change the argument culture to a dialogue culture.” Explain how this change could be made, and how your solution(s) would address the problems Tannen describes.
Write an essay that answers this question with specific reference to Tannen’s text. Your essay should include your own defensible thesis statement and reasons and examples from your studies, experience, or observations that develop and support it.
DEBORAH TANNEN
A professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, Deborah Tannen is also a best-selling author of many books on discourse and gender, including Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends (1984), You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1990), Talking from 9 to 5 (1994), and The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue (1998). Throughout her career, Tannen has focused on how men and women have different conversational habits and assumptions, whether they talk on the job or at home.
THE ARGUMENT CULTURE
Balance. Debate. Listening to both sides. Who could question these noble American traditions? Yet today, these principles have been distorted. Without thinking, we have plunged headfirst into what I call the "argument culture." The argument culture urges us to