A Comparative Essay: Gender Communication and Doublespeak Analysis

This comparative essay analyzes two articles: "What do You Mean" by Deborah Tannen and "The World of Doublespeak" by William Lutz. The essay explores communication discrepancies arising from gender differences in the workplace, as discussed by Tannen, highlighting how men and women differ in their approaches to expressing opinions, offering criticism, and handling problems. It also examines the concept of doublespeak, as presented by Lutz, which involves misleading communication through techniques like euphemisms, jargon, bureaucratese, and inflated language. The essay concludes by contrasting the nature of these communication challenges, noting that gender-based discrepancies stem from differing perspectives, whereas doublespeak is a deliberate attempt to deceive.

Running head: A Comparative Essay
A Comparative Essay
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2A Comparative Essay
The articles that will be compared in the present essay are “What do You Mean” by
Deborah Tannen and “The World of Doublespeak” by William Lutz. Both these essays discuss
about communication and the ways in which it can mislead or create misunderstanding.
The article by Tannen talks about the categories in which discrepancies in
communication take place due to gender differences in workplace situations. According to the
article, it has been observed that women care about feelings while conversing, where as men are
more concerned about exuding leadership (Gee and James). Women have a tendency to
apologize more in order to maintain a sense of equality between the speakers; men on the other
hand do not apologize as often. Men are more forthcoming and straightforward in expressing
criticism whereas, women try to soften criticisms prior to delivering them because of the fact that
they are sensitive towards feelings of others. Compliments to women are a way of expression for
good work whereas most men believe that not giving feedback is a sign of trust. Another
dimension in which a major communication gap occurs between men and women is in terms of
communicating about their problems, women tend to complain about their problems in order to
let out some pressure, men on the other hand, complain expecting to receive help (Tannen and
Deborah). Humor is another important area of discrepancy between the two genders, men like
humor involving mock-hostile attacks, razzing and teasing whereas women usually make self-
depreciative jokes. However, all of these miscommunications are due to differences in
perspective of genders and are innocent in nature.
Lutz in his article speaks about a concept called doublespeak, which is basically a form of
communication aimed at misleading people. He discusses four different categories of double
speaking namely, euphemism, jargons, bureaucratese and inflated words (Bull, Peter, and Anne-
Marie Simon-Vandenbergen). Euphemism is a commutation technique used to soften expression

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of a tragic or traumatic event, for instance using “passed away” instead of “died”. Using
euphemism in such situations is usually not considered as doublespeak. However, it falls under
the category of doublespeak when used to deceive or mislead people to avoid the reality of a
catastrophic or negative event, for instance, US State Department using the term “arbitrary
deprivation of life” instead of using the word “killing”. Jargons are another way of
communicating within a group with efficiency, however when used to confuse people outside the
group is considered as double speak (Rababah and Hussein Abdo). Adding unnecessary
complicated words and making a statement sound daunting and inflating a language to glorify
ordinary jobs are other forms of double speak. According to the author, this is an insidious
problem as it has the capability to infect and destroy the basic function of language that is to
communicate.
Therefore, it can be concluded that, Although both the essays deal with the theme of
communication and language they are distinctly different. Communication discrepancies
occurring between genders are due to difference in perspective however, double speaking is not
just a product of perspective difference or sloppy thinking, it is carefully thought out and
designed to mislead people or groups.

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References
Gee, James. Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. Routledge, 2015.
Tannen, Deborah. "The medium is the metamessage." Discourse 2 (2013): 99-117.
Bull, Peter, and Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen. "Equivocation and doublespeak in far right-
wing discourse: an analysis of Nick Griffin's performance on BBC's Question Time." Text &
Talk 34.1 (2014): 1-22.
Rababah, Hussein Abdo. "The Translatability and Use of X-Phemism Expressions (X-
Phemization): Euphemisms, Dysphemisms and Orthophemisms in the Medical
Discourse." Studies in Literature and Language 9.3 (2014): 229.