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*Authored Books for Scholarly Audiences
*Edited Books for Scholary Audiences
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Books

General Audience Books

You're Wearing That?:  Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation.  Now available from Random House.
They are the best of conversations, they are the worst of conversations.  In this book, Tannen listens in on mother-adult daughter communication, asking why these relationships are so fraught and what daughters and mothers can do to make their conversations--and their relationships--better.

I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You're All Adults. New York: Ballantine, 2002.
Whether you're talking to your parents, grown children, adult siblings, or in-laws, talking to family members can leave you tied up in knots.  Here, Tannen shows why this happens, and how to break the cycle of hurt to improve adult family relationships.
To read a brief article by Deborah Tannen about this book, click here.
Also available in an audio version.

The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words. New York: Ballantine, 1999.
Why do we approach public discourse--the press, politics, the law--as a pitched battle between two sides?  Tannen traces this tendency to boys at play; asks how other cultures approach opposition; discusses the role played by electronic communication in ratcheting up the level of aggression; and shows how we can move toward more constructive dialogue in our public lives.
To read a brief article by Deborah Tannen about this book, click here.
Also available in an audio version.

Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work. New paperback edition: New York: Quill, 2001. .
This book does for the workplace what Tannen's international bestseller You Just Don't Understand did for private conversations.  Women's and men's ways of talking affect who gets heard, who gets credit, and who gets ahead.
To read a brief article by Deborah Tannen about this book, click here.
Also available in an audio version.
Link to the training video,Talking 9 to 5, based on this book.

You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New paperback edition: New York: Quill, 2001.
A woman and man walk away from the same conversation with completely different ideas of what was said and what was meant, because talk between women and men can be like cross-cultural communication.  As witty and entertaining as it is enlightening, this is the book that brought gender differences in ways of talking to the forefront of public awareness. 
To read a brief article by Deborah Tannen about this book, click here.
Also available in an audio version.

That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships. NY: Ballantine, 1986.
Often it's not what you said but how you said it.  The part of the country you come from, ethnic background, age, class, gender, and just individual personality result in different conversational styles--different ways of saying the same thing.  Knowing what conversational style is and how it works gives you a revolutionary new way of understanding what goes on when you talk to others--and that understanding gives you tools you can use when you're not happy with the way a conversation has gone.
To read a brief article by Deborah Tannen about this book, click here.
Also available in an audio version.

Authored Books for Scholarly Audiences

Gender and Discourse. NY & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Paperback, including new final chapter, 1995.

Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships. NY: Ballantine, 1986.
This is an accessible, entertaining introduction to interactional sociolinguistics, or a linguistic approach to analyzing conversation and interpersonal communication.  It is suitable for introductory courses in linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language and culture, as well as psychology, communication, and interpersonal relations.

Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends. Revised edition, Oxford University Press, 2005.  Click here for audio clips corresponding with excerpts analyzed in the book.

Lilika Nakos. Twayne World Authors Series. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1983. (Excerpts reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism 1984).  A critical analysis of the work of modern Greek novelist Lilika Nakos.  Out of Print.

Edited Books for Scholarly Audiences

Linguistics, Language, and the Real World: Discourse and Beyond.  Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001. (with James E. Alatis).

Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 2001. (with Deborah Schiffrin and Heidi Hamilton).

Framing in Discourse. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Gender and Conversational Interaction. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Linguistics in Context: Connecting Observation and Understanding. Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1988

Languages and Linguistics: The Interdependence of Theory, Data and Application. Georgetown U. Press, 1986. (with James E. Alatis).  Out of print. 

Perspectives on Silence. Ablex, 1985. (with Muriel Saville-Troike)

Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. Ablex, 1984.

Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy. Ablex, 1982.

Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk. Georgetown University Press, 1982.


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