Deborah Tannen — American Sociologist born on June 07, 1945,

Deborah Frances Tannen is an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ... (wikipedia)

Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.
The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.
We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has.
For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.
Relationships are made of talk - and talk is for girls and women.