Metamessaging

Guest: Deborah Tannen, PhD, Professor of Linguistics, Georgetown University, author of “You’re the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women’s Friendship” You know when you text someone a request, and they reply “sure”? No exclamation point, no smiling emoji, not even a capital “S.” Are they happy to help you out, but in a hurry and can’t take long to text, as in and energetic, “Sure!” or are they just saying “sure,” voice down, because they can’t think of a way to say no?  The way words are said can matter as much as the words themselves. Digital communication is fraught with opportunities to send or receive the wrong message. But so is face-to-face conversation. Linguist Deborah Tannen studies the messages behind our messages.