Deborah Tannen Quotes

I am the youngest of three girls. My first linguistics book was a study of 'New York Jewish conversational style'. That was my dissertation.

I'm interested in the way language is used to navigate the world around us.

Semantics, or the study of meaning, remained undeveloped, while phonetics made rapid progress and even came to occupy the central place in the scientific study of language.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

Linguistics is very much a science. It's a human science, one of the human sciences. And it's one of the more interesting human sciences.

At the same time we overlap, because, I do linguistics, and Ben did a first degree in Linguistics at Lancaster University, so he knows some of my subject.

Language is something that I take great interest in.

My mother introduced to me as a child the world of language: the way in which translation can be a system by which you can understand others.

Language. By this we build pyramids, fight battles, ordain and administer laws, shape and teach religion, and knit man to man, cultivate each other, and ourselves.

LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

People, by and large, would rather be talking than listening.

The marvelous thing is that even in studying linguistics, we find that the universe as a whole is patterned, ordered, and to some degree intelligible to us.

There's always something to talk about.

I actually like talking.

I have always liked hanging out with people and talking to people.

I like talking to people.

New Yorkers seem to think the best thing two people can do is talk.

Nothing trumps good conversation.

I love how humans talk.

I like talking.

I don't think you really get to know a person until you talk to them.

My linguistics is pretty theoretical.

Talk is free. You never know what's going to happen after you talk. There's always a perception about a guy until you actually sit down and talk with him.

Conversation is a game of circles.

Talking payes no toll.