Analysis of the Argument Culture Essay

The contrast close is a persuasive essay written by Professor Deborah Tannen. As a professor of philology at Georget make University, Tannen experience in language leads her to write mevery books in this field. Tannen uses The Argument Culture essay to persuade her audience that this societys psycheal manner of looking at debate get aheads an adversarial frame of judicial decision (Tannen, 305). Three of Tannens main points include polarized views in the news, the use of contend metaphors by media to catch the readers eye, and change surface in the language mankind uses in everyday life. Tannens essay also includes different looks to look at these each of these situations that may financial aid reduce the debate language that this society uses every day.The showtime example Tannen shares is how this society assumes the best way to solve anything is through debate. Tannen explains, this society believes the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as both sides of the story (305). In some parcel these interviews turn into very heated debates with both sides yelling over the other to make their point heard. These heated debates only divides the audience into sides and closes minds to the facts on the other side of the debate.Most Americans do not provoke these strong opposing viewpoints on an issue until they are influenced by the debates in the news. Instead, Tannen encourages newscasters to ask What are the other sides? (308) Asking this question will get them thought about all of the different points of view they can report on. Then the newscasters can invite guests from multiple differing viewpoints to discuss the issue. Having a group discussion with differing slight extreme viewpoints can help defuse opposition, encouraging a discussion format instead of debating the issues at hand. The audience can then develop their own opinion on the issues at hand. The next example Tanne n shares is how the media uses war metaphors to shape our thinking. A few of these war metaphors are the war on drugs, the war on cancer, the battle of the sexes (305). These metaphors are used to catch the attention of the reader and to get the reader to pick a side.This is not always a good thing. sometimes these metaphors are a great way to get support such as the war on cancer, because the more people that help fight this war the better chance cancer can be defeated. The media needs to decide to use war metaphors where it will encourage support insteadof encouraging debate. An example of a war metaphor that encourages debate is the battle of the sexes, because this metaphor only pits the sexes against each other. There is enough struggle for equality between the sexes without the so called battle. Men and women should be working together to reach their goals instead of competing against each other to reach their own goal. .A walk down the magazine isle at any store will prove Ta nnens point that nearly everything is framed as a battle or game in which winning or losing is the main concern (305). Another important point Tannen brings up is the power of intelligences to shape perception (306). It is amazing how easy it is to change how things are comprehend by just changing one word in a sentence. The example she shares to prove this point is from an experiment Psychologists Elisabeth Loftus and John Palmer performed. In the experiment devil groups of people watch the same movie of a car accident. The two groups are asked essentially the same question except one sentence uses the word bumped and the other uses smashed to describe the collision.Tannen explains those who read the question with smashed tended to remember that the cars were going faster (306). Americans need to be aware and on the lookout for these circumstances because that one word can mean the difference between dialogue and debate. Everyone needs to understand how easily language can chang e a persons perception of a situation because, as Tannen shares, language invisibly molds our way of thinking about people, actions and the world around us (306). In The Argument Culture essay Tannen tries to open eyes to the American tradition of debate. This is very important because the argument culture pervades every aspect of Americans lives today (305).As Tannens first main point informs the reader, the argument culture is especially evident when watching the nightly news and being bombarded by debate. Through Tannens examples of war metaphors she proves that the media uses these metaphors to encourage disputes. War metaphors can also be found in Americans everyday conversations it is particularly used to emphasis or even blow up a point in a conversation. This also shows how the language that is used in describing a situation changes ones perception of the said situation. Tannens essay should be read by everyone living in this argument culture so their eyes will be open to t he adversarial frame of mind (305) that can be found in this society. Then maybe this argument culture can find creativeways of resolving disputes and differences (305) without debate.Works CitedTannen, Deborah. The Argument Culture. The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers. Ed. Stephen Reid. 10th ed. Boston Pearson, 2014. 305-09. Print.