TELEVISION REVIEW : ‘She Said, He Said’: A Real Talk Show

Anyone who has ever started an ordinary conversation with a member of the opposite sex, only to end up considering the rewards of life in a monastery, should find themselves nodding in agreement watching “She Said, He Said,” a new public-television special airing during March pledge drives.

The show, (at 9 p.m. today on KPBS Channel 15), spends about an hour (pledge breaks not included) with Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University linguistics professor and author of the recent best-sellers “You Just Don’t Understand” and “That’s Not What I Meant.” Her tomes have turned scholarly research about the differences between male and female patterns of communications into self-help guides for better interpersonal relationships.

If the program’s format seems a bit contrived at times--host Steve Roberts (who’s not identified beyond that) and members of the audience ask questions that almost too neatly lead into major issues addressed in her books--Tannen nevertheless proves to be an engaging speaker. But then, if she wasn’t, she’d probably have to turn in her key to the Executive Linguists’ Washroom.

Her main generalizations are that women use conversation to establish rapport and intimacy, where men communicate largely to gain information and establish independence. Women often initiate dialogue just to be heard; men are obsessed with providing answers, even where none are sought.

Can such revelations be used to solve age-old complaints men have about women who nag and that women have about men who never listen? Oh, that’s such a typical male problem-solving sort of question. As it turns out, someone in the audience asks the same thing, to which Tannen replies that by understanding what the opposite sex is looking for through conversation, we can help improve those communications.

One of the most intriguing parts of the show examines same-sex conversations between three groups of children--two boys and two girls each at the ages of 5, 10 and 15. The videotaped sessions show the same patterns at each age level: the girls face each other and maintain almost constant eye contact; the boys sit more side by side, hardly ever looking directly at each other, regardless of the subjects they are discussing.

Tannen outlines how these and other patterns of communicating established during childhood carry over into adult opposite-sex relationships and how they can produce the miscues, gaffes and knock-down drag-outs that most couples struggle to overcome.

But the show needs more examples of actual conversations and a little less talking-heads analysis of general conversational patterns. It also would have been nice to explore whether these traits are genetically ingrained or learned; Tannen explains that there’s been little research into that question.

It’s all delivered in what probably is as even-handed a manner as possible, Tannen doing her best to reinforce the message that neither style is right or good, wrong oe bad. And if she has a solution to offer, it’s that we’ll all be better off if we don’t blame one another for communicating differently.

To this viewer, however, the scales seem to tip slightly toward the conclusion that the world would be a better place if only men would lighten up and not be so, well, male about everything. Wait, I didn’t mean it to sound like that . . .