Tannen vs Graff -- Brianne

            I do believe that Tannen has my vote on this one! I love how eye-opening Tannen was in her piece. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we all use abrasive language in everyday life. Everything becomes a metaphor for war, battle, or harm upon others. It’s in our daily lives! Littered in magazine, newspaper and online articles as well as all over the media and even in the school systems. It is so true that we are trained to be argumentative and ultimately, trained to win. When you devise a five-paragraph thesis paper, what is your goal? To bash the opposing side and make sure to prove your side. As Tannen mentioned, one would even go so far as to use the weakest evidence from the opposing source, to further benefit your argument. It seems as though the lengths we take to argue and argue forcefully are much more drastic than we realize in our everyday life.

            Although Tannen is much more inspirational to me in this subject, I will not deny the good points that Graff has. Graff seems to be more of a realist than Tannen. Graff does not wish to remove argument, or dull it. He wishes to use its power and create a well-rounded argument that would be acceptable to use in everyday life and in settings like the classroom. And I believe Graff is right. You barely see a good, organized, intellectual debate in the school systems anymore. From my experience in High School, we were discouraged to debate. Almost as if it were a burden on the teacher, as if the teacher assumed everything would get out of hand in a hurry and the debate would be quickly shut down anyway.  Maybe if we were taught how to properly debate and argue as young adults, there would be no issue in the matter.

            At the end of the day, I do believe people need to learn how to get out of the habit of argumentation, and into the habit of listening, agreeing or disagreeing, and respecting both sides. There should be no winner or loser when you argue. Everyone is different and everyone has a different thought process and perspective. If we can learn how to respect everyone’s argument while being able to respectfully propose our own, the world of language would be a much better off place.