Issue 4: On Writing Retreats, Anthropomorphized Trees, and Differing Conversation Styles
Hey friend,
Welcome back to my biweekly newsletter where I share short, poorly edited notes about stuff I find interesting.
I’ve just come back from a short writing retreat, three nights in an Airbnb on Pender Island with a group of writers I’m at varying stages of getting to know. It was a refreshing and productive trip, but the preparations came with some anxiety. What would it be like to spend whole days with this new group of people? Would we get along? Would we have things to talk about? Would we still like each other at the end?
Of course, it all turned out well. We had lots to talk about–including a surprise visit from a couple of whales on the final day that I have no photos of, and this sexy arbutus tree that I took a surprising number of photos of.
But the trip has me thinking about times when these things have turned out less well, when the personalities have not meshed and I’ve left social situations feeling frustrated or worn down rather than invigorated. What makes one social situation more or less stressful than another? What makes one group of people work while another dissolves?
It’s tempting to believe that the answer might fall on one or two personalities that are just the worst. Once in a while, that’s true. But I think it’s usually more complex than that. The way people communicate is both individual and cultural, and the interaction between those communication styles can be a source of both pleasure and pain. It can feel so natural, but if you really begin to pick apart the concept of the conversation as a social space, it’s kind of a miracle anyone manages to do it well.
I know I’m not alone in being out of practice in the socializing department after a couple years of isolation. But truth be told, though I get energy and joy out of being with others, I’ve also long been anxious about it. I suspect it goes back to a childhood where I was criticized daily for talking too much. I recently discovered a diary entry from the year I was 11 where I vowed to give up talking so much as a New Year’s resolution. It makes me a bit sad for my young self who was told over and over again that her way of communicating was annoying or somehow not appropriate for a girl. No wonder I developed a bit of a complex about it.
Early in the pandemic, when we were all renegotiating our social styles in response to the constantly shifting variables of online communication, I came across the concept of high involvement and high considerateness, which was originated by linguist Deborah Tannen to explain how different people choose when to speak within a conversation and how differing expectations can lead to misunderstandings. Basically, in high involvement communities, it’s normal to move quickly from one speaker to another. Conversational overlap signifies engagement between the speakers. In high considerateness communities, speakers will expect a period of silence before the next person speaks. When a high involvement person encounters a high considerateness person, both can leave feeling like the other was being rude–one for speaking too much and the other for speaking too little.
This is an issue I’ve run into when living in different places around the world. Vancouver, I think, is a high considerateness community. Edmonton, where I grew up, is a bit further along the involvement scale, but it’s nothing compared to Ireland, where I spent a year after graduating from university. I may have been considered a motormouth as a kid, but I was read as practically shy by some of my coworkers in Dublin, at least until I got a couple of beers in me. Things became more complicated when I moved to Japan and began trying to communicate across languages.
For a better explanation of the whole concept of conversation analysis, this episode of the Lingthusiasm podcast with Gretchen McCullah and Lauren Gawne is a terrific resource.
I also enjoy this interview with Deborah Tannen herself on the Hidden Brain podcast that includes recordings from her own research. When she gets to talking about men and women in the middle, things get a bit determinist, but I think she does a good job of arguing that these differing ways of talking are a) not absolute and b) acquired rather than biologically defined.
In fact, I think it’s worth pointing out, as some people did on Twitter, that what we consider “normal” in a conversation tends to align with other social power structures. As Samantha Nock said: “a lot of what we are taught of what active listening 'looks like' is very white and western and doesn’t take into consideration other cultural norms and/or neurodivergent folks.” Like every aspect of language, communication styles don't exist in a historical or political vacuum.
I've definitely been accused of being too direct for a girl or lacking in some mythical ability to read the kind of indirect messages that women are supposed to be aware of. I suspect this is at least partly to do with class.
It occurs to me that this anxiety about speaking is part of why I find it such a fascinating topic to read about. It’s also part of what led me toward journalism. The live interview is one of my favourite parts of the research process for an article. I like how it creates a clear structure for a conversation. I’ve always tended to be a direct question asker, something that people can find off-putting in regular conversation. But in an interview, direct questions are acceptable and expected (though of course you still need to move with tact).
I also love doing phone interviews. I know there are many who find phone communication stressful, but I find it quite relaxing. For one thing, no one is paying attention to anyone else’s body language, which means the amount of information to process is minimal. Also I love voices. I love hearing the way people express emotion through tone. I love the way the vowel sounds we use give all sorts of information about where we grew up or where we’ve lived. But that is, perhaps, a conversation for another issue.
Thanks for reading. If you have thoughts or questions, or you'd like to chat about your experiences with conversation styles, go ahead and drop me a line via Twitter. And if you like what you've read, go ahead and share it!
~ Erika
PS. There were sunsets on the island, too. This one was nice.