"We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has"
About this Quote
Language is the wallpaper of social life: always there, rarely inspected, shaping the room while we argue about the furniture. Deborah Tannen’s line works because it names a quiet cognitive trick. We “look through” language the way we look through glass, treating words as neutral conduits for meaning rather than as tools that actively structure what meaning can even be noticed. The intent isn’t mystical. It’s methodological: stop treating talk as a transparent report of reality and start treating it as an instrument that produces reality in real time.
The subtext is a critique of how people misdiagnose conflict. Tannen’s career has been built on the idea that many interpersonal blowups aren’t about “content” so much as style: indirectness versus directness, overlap versus turn-taking, ritual politeness versus efficiency. When language is invisible, power hides inside “just how I talk” or “common sense,” and the person who gets labeled “too sensitive” or “too aggressive” is often the one whose linguistic norms don’t match the dominant setting. That’s power doing its work without announcing itself.
Context matters: as a sociolinguist writing in an era of gendered workplace dynamics, culture-war misunderstandings, and now platform-driven communication, Tannen is flagging that language isn’t merely reflective; it’s regulatory. The words available to you shape what can be said without penalty, what counts as credible, who gets interrupted, and whose stories get downgraded to “drama.” The punch of the sentence lies in its plainness: it’s a warning that the most influential forces are the ones we stop noticing.
The subtext is a critique of how people misdiagnose conflict. Tannen’s career has been built on the idea that many interpersonal blowups aren’t about “content” so much as style: indirectness versus directness, overlap versus turn-taking, ritual politeness versus efficiency. When language is invisible, power hides inside “just how I talk” or “common sense,” and the person who gets labeled “too sensitive” or “too aggressive” is often the one whose linguistic norms don’t match the dominant setting. That’s power doing its work without announcing itself.
Context matters: as a sociolinguist writing in an era of gendered workplace dynamics, culture-war misunderstandings, and now platform-driven communication, Tannen is flagging that language isn’t merely reflective; it’s regulatory. The words available to you shape what can be said without penalty, what counts as credible, who gets interrupted, and whose stories get downgraded to “drama.” The punch of the sentence lies in its plainness: it’s a warning that the most influential forces are the ones we stop noticing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|
More Quotes by Deborah
Add to List
