The audience which is my class is composed of my peers who are freshmen, who hold a high
school diploma, and my professor, who has a graduate degree in English. Most of the audience
has siblings or parents which they have probably experienced disagreements with. The
audience knows a little about the article the argument culture because they have because they
have read or heard about the article in class. America truly has a rhetoric based culture in
which, as far as I know, all of my audience grew up in watching their parents have, and work
through arguments. If their parents didn’t have disagreements they watch the news which
shows two extreme points of view, and the spokes people from a particular point of view trying
to discredit the others view and tell you why their point of view is better which is arguing. My
relationship to my audience is the fact that I’m their peer, and I have past experience in the art
of arguing in a formal setting which was a communications class which we had a whole
semester over rhetoric and analyzing people’s ideas and finding flaws in them in the process of
trying to get the point across why our point of view is better. The point of my thesis is that
arguing is a good thing it actually makes the participants come together to actually talk about
problems, and maybe even come up with brilliant ides. I also think that arguing actually makes
you smarter by looking at multiple points of view and coming to a decision and expressing how
you feel about your opinion, and that instead of hurting our culture it actually makes it more
interesting. I want to come across as someone who has experience with the subject because
everybody does because usually every one has had a disagreement with someone and tried to
get the person to look at the situation and try to indoctrinate the opposition in to seeing it like
they do
Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and also a best-selling author.
Many of her books subjects are on discourse and gender, which are You Just Don't Understand: Women
and Men in Conversation (1990), Talking from 9 to 5 (1994), The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate
to Dialogue (1998), and I Only Say This Because I Love You (2001). Tannen’s books mainly used the
literary style of logos, persuasion by the use of reasoning, which intern creates credibility or ethos,
convincing by the character of the author, which Leeds the reader to trusting her as an authority on her
subjects. During her career, Tannen mainly focused on how men and women have different styles of
conversation and different points of view. In the essay, “The Argument Culture”, Tannen attempts to
convince her readers that adversarial or two-sided debates promote hostility, which usually creates a
problem with communication .Tannen believes that as a culture we would be exponentially more
successful if we didn't think of arguing as a fight, but more as a discussion with a variety of different
viewpoints. Deborah Tannen uses logos and ethos mostly in her work by stating an opinion then backing
it up with facts. Although she uses logos and ethos to gain credibility with the reader, the reader does
not relate to her work because of the lack of pathos and the fact that her thesis implies there are many
viewpoints in an argument, but in her article she contradicts herself by only using two view points
Tannen starts off the paper by stating that “The argument culture urges us to approach the world
and the people in it in an adversarial frame of mind” (Tannen 404). She goes on to describe how our
media shows two completely opposite points of view just to let them attack each other. Then she
makes the point that instead of us arguing we should find constructive Ways of resolving our
disagreements. She also acknowledges that periodically there is a need to argue for reasons like our
human rights or against radical ideas or actions of others. With our culture, instead of discussions we
arrange the issue to look like there are only two sides and this makes it harder for us to resolve
problems and find solutions. Next, the author describs how theoretically high-tech communication
should bring us together, but it actually does the opposite. the lack of face- to-face contact which
basically puts us in our own little worlds instead of branching out and socializing .Then she makes the
observation that email makes our contact with people basically anonymous because of the lack of faceto-face interaction. Next, the author explains how the argument culture shapes who we are. First, she
states, “It makes us distort facts”(Tannen 406). In this instance she referenced a Time Magazine article
of the story of a skater who attacked another skater, but the media made it look like there was not a
victim just two aggressors. Then she also stated that “it makes us waste valuable time” (Tannen 407).in
this instance she referenced to the founder of AIDS who was being accused and prosecuted for stealing
someone’s work during the time he could have spent creating a cure for AIDS. Next, she states, “how
arguing limits our thinking” (Tannen 407). This creates the dialogue we use, which contributes to us
viewing everything as a fight, and next how it encourages us to lie because of the temptation to be right
is too great for us to handle. Finally, she comes to a conclusion by stating ways to end the argument
culture, and her opinions on how to do this are: instead of only looking at two sides look at all sides.
The public venues, like radio or TV, should have an odd number of guests instead of two, and society
should come up with a way other than arguing to gain knowledge.
As you see, Deborah Tannen uses logos and ethos mostly in her work by stating an opinion then
backing it up with facts. This is exemplified when she states in her article “The Argument Culture” that
the argument culture shapes who we are and then says that it makes us distort facts, where she backs
up her claim by using the Time Magazine article where the skater attacked another skater (406). By
using this method, Tannen gains the trust of the reader because the reader sees her as more trust
worthy. Instead of her just stating an opinion and saying she is right because she is an accomplished
professor, she backs up her claim by referencing a credible source.
As you see ,Tannen is very good at using ethos and logos but she lacks the use of pathos. In her story
The Argument culture she only attempts this slightly when she used the example “My father-in-law
startles phone solicitors by saying, ‘We're eating dinner, but I'll call you back. What's your home phone
number?’ To the nonplused caller, he explains, ‘Well, you're calling me at home; I thought I'd call you at
home, too.’" this is her only attempt at using pathos in this article because she tries to be humorous,
but it is a failed attempt. because this the only example of pathos in her article, she lacks an emotional
connection to her reader.
Additional to the lack of emotional connection to her reader, Tannen also loses the reader because
her thesis is that the American culture usually sees that there are only two sides of view to any subject.
in her paper she contradicts herself by only showing one point of view, which is that the argument
culture is substandard and I can fix it. Because not once did Tannen refer to the other sides claims like
her main idea said she should. By Tannen doing this she loses allot of the accreditation she gained by
using logos and ethos throughout her paper.so I as a reader sees this as how are we going to change the
argument culture when a paper about changing the argument culture to view it as two sides is
contradicting itself by using only one point of view throughout the whole article. When the writer does
this she makes the reader skeptical about the main point of her paper so as a writer Tannen should have
acknowledged that there was another point of view instead of just stating hers. This is because it would
have given her the chance to respond to the reader’s objections before they finished reading. It also
would have showed that she was a reasonable person who considered all sides of the debate and this
would have increased her credibility dramatically. This would have made her essay exponentially more
persuasive to the reader.
In conclusion as you see Tannen has lost some of her credibility by not making a counter argument or
at least acknowledging that there was another argument or point of view, but she didn’t lose all of the
credibility with her reader because the use of logos and ethos though out her paper. Tannen also does
not use any pathos in her writing so she lacks the connection with her readers.
Tannen, Deborah. "The Argument Culture." The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers. Custom Ivy Tech
edition. Ed. Stephen Reid. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson, 2011. 403-407. Print.