For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.

This results in men and women having trouble communicating with the opposite sex later in life. She has been McGraw DistinguiDeborah Tannend Lecturer at Princeton University and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton NJ.

C. Deborah Frances Tannen (born June 7 1945) is an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington D.