Linguist Deborah Tannen has done extensive research into contrasting conversational styles, particularly the contrast between high-involvement speakers, whose interruptions signal great enthusiasm and engagement, and high-considerateness speakers, whose style is marked by reflective pauses and polite turn-taking. Neither style is inherently superior, and being aware of those differences and adjusting one’s style and expectations can foster more satisfying and effective communication. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “One Conversational Style Seems Rude, and Another Seems Standoffish, and Knowing More About them May Help You Communicate Better”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. I had an interesting linguistic experience the other day.
I had spent the morning reading about conversational styles and reviewing the work of linguist Deborah Tannen, who studied them extensively, and she was writing about a style of speaking called cooperative overlap, which occurs when the listener starts talking when the other person is already speaking. Not really to interrupt, but precisely to show that they’re really enthusiastic. They’re really engaged in the conversation.
And that’s in contrast to the conversational style she calls high considerateness, which is marked by more pausing and turn-taking. And when two people end up in the same conversation and they have different styles, things can get confusing or even frustrating. Because the high considerateness speaker may feel interrupted or dismissed. And the high involvement person may suspect that the other one isn’t really interested in the conversation.
And it’s not as if one’s style is inherently better. They’re just different. And as it happened, that afternoon I had a socially distanced visit for the first time in months with one of my oldest and dearest friends. And she and I text and email a lot, but we hadn’t seen each other in forever. And she’s a longtime New Yorker, and as you might imagine, she’s definitely a high involvement speaker. And of course, I fall into the high considerateness category.
And I was taken aback because I would start a sentence and literally get six or seven words into it. And she’d start talking over me. And it’s not as if she’s hard of hearing. She’s not being rude or discounting what I had to say. She was actually having a grand old time and showing me that she was completely present and engaged and excited about what we were discussing. And it was, Grant, it was just sort of this experience in the wild where I had this clicking moment where I realized, oh, that’s what’s going on here.
Yeah, it’s so perfect. And you and I have that to a smaller degree because I, too, tend to be a high-involvement speaker. And I’ve learned to moderate it over our years together so that we can make this radio show. But I get it. I’m on the other end of that. I have a friend who now lives in Detroit, but we knew each other in New York City. And when she and I get together, we can talk for three hours straight, nonstop, without either of us breaking. We just go. And it’s wonderful. I love it. And few people can keep up with us. We just sit in the corner talking. It’s fantastic.
Well, and it is really interesting if you get those two different styles together. I mean, it seems that one of the things that you can do is be aware of that difference. And the person who’s the high involvement speaker can bring it down a little bit. But the other one has to sort of up their game as well. And I find that. You know, I find that now I’m trying to jump in more.
Yeah, as a high involvement speaker, what I’ve started to do is when I want to speak as a high involvement and a person who practices cooperative overlap, where I overlap with you to show that I’m with you and that I’m adding to what you’re saying instead of interrupting what you’re saying. What I try to do when I’m face-to-face is instead of speaking, I’m nodding or I’m doing the yeah, yeah, yeah hand gestures or I’m doing a lot more emphatic body movements. And that’s the way I’m participating rather than speaking with my voice. And that’s a real good way to direct my way of showing involvement and my excitement that we’re together and that we’re both on the same page. And it works, but you have to practice it.
Right, you do. And I think it’s another example of what we say about if the way that somebody is talking or the words they use bothers you, maybe it’s time to just step back and observe it and think, whoa, this is a specimen. So some terms that we’re talking about here, just to put some names on this, are high involvement versus high considerateness. So high involvement is a lot of talk. You’re talking at the same time the other person is talking. You’re showing that you’re interested. High considerateness is when you are turn-taking. You’re waiting for an opening. You’re being quiet while the other person is speaking. And you may never get to speak because they don’t give you an opening.
Two other terms to consider when you’re thinking about your speaking style are cooperative overlap. This is where you’re speaking while the other person is speaking, but you’re not interrupting them. You’re adding to the conversation or you’re agreeing with the conversation. And interruptive overlap, which is where you are interrupting them because you’re speaking while they’re speaking. And you’re probably trying to take over the conversation. You’re interrupting to derail them or to own the moment.
And so these four different terms kind of lay out the different positions, the four different main positions that you can have when you’re having a conversation. There are others, but these are kind of the pinnacle of the conversations that we have. So we’d love to hear about your experiences as a high considerateness speaker or a high involvement person. Have you had a conversation with somebody and you just realized that you were speaking in entirely different ways and it wasn’t working out? How did you solve that problem? 877-929-9673 or send the story an email. The address is words@waywordradio.org.
