英语单词大师：'You're Wearing

 I'm Nancy Beardsley, filling in for Avi Arditti and Rosanne Skirble. This week on Wordmaster we'll talk about communication -- and miscommunication -- between mothers and daughters.

Our guest is Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown University linguistics¹ professor who writes best selling books about how conversation styles affect relationships. She's written about dialogues among men and women, adult family members, friends and co-workers. Her latest book is called "You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation."Ms. Tannen says mother-daughter relationships are like other close bonds-but even more intense:

DEBORAH TANNEN: "In every relationship you have to balance how close or distant you want to be, but girls in particular are very focused on that closeness-distance dimension, as well as the sameness and difference. (They are) always asking, are we the same, or are we different? What I see in you, what does that say about me?

"And talk is the glue that holds the relationship together for girls and women, and less so for boys and men. So mothers and daughters talk more. They talk about more personal topics, which gives you more of an opportunity to say the wrong thing."NB: "And in fact you found that a mother with more than one daughter is more likely to have flare-ups with the daughter she talks to more?"DEBORAH TANNEN: "Yes. The closer you are, the more opportunity to step on each other's toes. And women are much more focused often on appearance, and that's where you get what I call 'the big three,' and that's clothing, hair and weight, where daughters feel their mothers are criticizing, and mothers feel, 'I can't open my mouth. She takes everything as criticism.'

"And the caring and the criticizing really are communicated in the same words. So if the mother says, 'Do you like your hair that long?' or if she says, 'Do you think that skirt really fits you?' the daughter is going to hear it as criticism. In the first case, 'Your hair doesn't look good.' In the second, 'You're putting on weight.'"NB: "And you talk about the way messages and metamessages work in mother-daughter communication. Would you explain what that means?"DEBORAH TANNEN: "The message is the meaning of the words, and we always agree on that if we speak the language, but the metamessage is what we think it says about our relationship that you say these words in this way at this time. Often between mothers and daughters, you're having a conversation that seems like an amiable² chat, and then suddenly somebody says something and everybody's back is up.

"So when the mother says to the daughter about the granddaughter, 'She would look so pretty if she would comb her hair,' the metamessage the daughter hears is--first of all, she may be reminded her mother was always at her to brush her hair when she was a child, which reminds her that her mother didn't really approve of her because she was kind of a tomboy.

"And then there's the level that her parenting is being criticized. So she might snap³ something like, 'She's perfectly⁴ fine, Mom, leave her alone.' Now who introduced that note of contention⁵? The daughter thinks the mother did by criticizing the grandchild's hair. But the mother thinks she may have made an innocent comment, and the daughter has changed it.

NB: "Given the years that shape these messages and their interpretation⁶, how can mothers and daughters change the way they communicate to avoid some of these misunderstandings?"DEBORAH TANNEN: "Both need to recognize that caring and communicating are in the same words, so mothers can try to bite their tongues. One mother said her mantra is 'Don't advise, don't criticize.' But daughters can remind themselves that it really is a sign of love, and you're probably going to miss it when your mother is gone.

"Humor is very helpful. One family said, one time the mother was giving a recipe and she was so detailed⁷ the daughter said, 'You know, I think I know you should sift⁸ the flour without your telling me,' so whenever she feels her mother is giving her too much advice she says, 'It's like the cake recipe, Mom.' And then they laugh, because it's something they share, and that in itself makes them feel connected."NB: "Did you find any differences among ethnic⁹ groups in the way mothers and daughters communicate?"DEBORAH TANNEN: "I did interview African Americans, Asian American women and white women of all backgrounds. And no, I didn't find that much difference. A woman wrote to me who grew up in Guyana. And she said her mother said to her word for word the title of my book 'you're wearing that?' in Guyanese the night before a party. And even though she thought the dress was fine, when her mother said that, she stayed up all night and made a new dress. So it does seem to be quite universal. I'm sure there are some levels of difference, but I found many fewer than I expected."NB: Deborah Tannen, thank you very much. Ms. Tannen is the author of "You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation." And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is [email protected], and you can find all of our segments¹⁰ posted at voanews.com/wordmaster.

Filling in for Avi Arditti and Rosanne Skirble, I'm Nancy Beardsley.

1 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

2 amiable   

adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的

参考例句：

• She was a very kind and amiable old woman.她是个善良和气的老太太。
• We have a very amiable companionship.我们之间存在一种友好的关系。

3 snap   

n.啪地移动，突然断掉；v.猛咬，咬断，谩骂，砰然关上

参考例句：

• He broke off the twig with a snap.他啪地一声把那根树枝折断了。
• These earrings snap on with special fasteners.这副耳环是用特制的按扣扣上去的。

4 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

5 contention   

n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张

参考例句：

• The pay increase is the key point of contention. 加薪是争论的焦点。
• The real bone of contention,as you know,is money.你知道，争论的真正焦点是钱的问题。

6 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

7 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

8 sift   

v.筛撒，纷落，详察

参考例句：

• Sift out the wheat from the chaff.把小麦的壳筛出来。
• Sift sugar on top of the cake.在蛋糕上面撒上糖。

9 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

10 segments   

部分( segment的名词复数 )； 瓣； [计算机]（字符等的）分段； [动物学]节片

参考例句：

• He is eating oranges in segments. 他正在一瓣瓣地吃橘子。
• Gene cloning provides a means of purifying and propagating specific DNA segments. 基因克隆化提供了一种纯化和扩增特定DNA片段的方法。