Essay Comparison: Communicational Discrepancy in Tannen and Lutz

This essay presents a comparative analysis of two essays: "What do You Mean" by Deborah Tannen and "The World of Doublespeak" by William Lutz. The study focuses on the communication discrepancies and misunderstandings that arise in conversations, particularly highlighting the differences in communication styles between men and women, as discussed by Tannen. It further explores specific terms related to communication, such as doublespeak, including euphemism, jargon, and bureaucratese, as defined by Lutz. The essay highlights the distinct forms of communication processes and the varied terminologies used to express thoughts. It concludes that while both essays address communication, they approach the subject from different angles, with Tannen focusing on gender-based differences and Lutz on deceptive language practices.

Summary
The study presents the comparison between two essays, “What do you mean” written by
Deborah Tannen and “The World of Doublespeak” by William Lutz. The study compares and
contrasts the communicational discrepancy and the misunderstanding created during the
conversations. The comparisons are especially focusing on the communication process of
men and women. The study even describes some of the specific terms related to the
communicational forms. Such of these terms are double-speaking namely, euphemism,
jargon, bureaucratese and full words. The distinctive communicational form is elaborated in
this essay. The essays portray the different forms of communicational process that are
distinguished between the men and women.

Yujing Liu
Professor Melissa Poole
English 111
08February 2018
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 communication and how it can mislead or create misunderstanding. In this essay, the
comparison and similarities between two articles would be presented. The study would
highlight the communicational differences between men and women and their traits while
communicating with others. Furthermore, the study tends to develop the idea about the
diverse terminologies used for expressing thoughts.
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. However, men
are more concerned about exuding leadership. Women tend to apologize for more to maintain
a sense of equality between the speakers; men, on the other hand, do not be sorry as often.
Men are more forthcoming and straightforward in expressing criticism whereas; women try to
soften criticisms before delivering them because 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 significant
communication gap occurs between men and women is regarding communicating about their

problems; women tend to complain about their problems to let out pressure; on the other
hand, men complain expecting to receive help. 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-depreciate jokes. However, all of these
miscommunications are due to differences in perspective of genders and are innocent.
Lutz in his article speaks about a concept called doublespeak, which is a form of
communication aimed at misleading people. He discusses four different categories of double-
speaking namely, euphemism, jargon, bureaucratese and full words. Euphemism is a
commutation technique used to soften expression 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, the organization is considered as doublespeak.
Adding unnecessarily complicated words and making a statement sound daunting and
inflating a language to glorify regular jobs are other forms of doublespeak. According to the
author, this is an insidious problem as it can infect and destroy the primary function of
language that is to communicate.
It is observed that both of the essays present the similar conceptual analysis, which
depicts that the communicational discrepancy is the source of misunderstanding. However, it

is noticed that Tannen presents the examples of communicational differences between men
and women. On the other hand, Lutz develops the understanding of the different
terminologists to express the words in different ways. The diverse form of communication is
presented in the article developed by Lutz. The article by Tannen develops the nature of the
men and women while communicating. Therefore, it can be implied that in spite of the
similar approaches of presenting the understanding of communicational differences, the study
even presenting the contrasting concepts as well.
Therefore, it can conclude 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 a 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.