Shared Styles and Style Matching

Edith White

Ashford University Online

Professor: Katherine Tracy

COM200: Interpersonal Communication (GSL1436D)

September 15, 2014

Shared Talking Styles Herald New and Lasting Romance According to this article, Bower suggest that Love's flame get fanned when a man and woman use similar words such as, I, it and, but. I feel that language is the communication of how one wants the communication to go, and whether the parties can be attracted to each other through the art and skill of listening and observing the many languages of the body and being able to read it correctly. (sole 2011) A good conversation piece and kept the conversation alive and interesting. I warmed up to him and we did start to date as he was the “perfect gentleman” that was also christian oriented. All these characteristics of the guy was what I was attracted to, and we because the ultimate “two peas in a pod”, the dream couple I guess that may be the word. It is amazing how opposites attract as this was our case, but we both put forth an effort to make the small things that we argue over work as well as the bigger things that could damage the whole relationship, we simply talk to each other not at each other. Simmon Garrod comments that “ romantic ties may indeed benefit from matching conversational styles”, and that the rate of speech, emotional tone and mannerisms by a conversation partner increases how much that person is liked, and we did have this in our meeting and ending of conversations especially when departing. Another point of interest in this article was that how one can “click with someone, and you can't put your finger on the reason being”, that be because of the language style matching. Pennebaker stated that when two people are in a bitter fight, they tend to really talk (cuss) or yell in similar ways, and those with highly attentive conversation partner like one another. As I see couples that are dating, and those that are going steady for a short period of time, the out come of how long they may be together or how solid their relationship is to be. A situation I encountered today (Sunday) with my young son and his girlfriend, she was so frustrated at him that the point she was trying to make was not making any sense to either of them. She then lost for words as to how she was going to get her point across started cussing at him, I am one that does not condone a lot of cussing especially on Sunday, and if it is deep then its time to shut your mouth or go outside of my home, because I do not talk like that myself, occasional slip in the presents of the bathroom. I interfered and make it a point to note the cussing, then proceed to mention that her cuss words was not the proper way of getting her point across, the yelling along with the body language could be adjusted with tone down your voice, delete the words and talk to him not at him in a calmer voice. I will give myself credit, she didn't want to try it because she didn't think it would work, it did work and the two of them later were laughing and talking and went on their merry way with a smile. My LSM I did of a IMchat session between a best friend co-worker from the past. The score that I received from the text was 0.82. This score was slightly below average, most scores range between .75 and .95 with the average mark being around .84. It was helpful to me, and it lets me know that I was not interacting enough attention to the conversation or the score would have been higher. I do save conversations for future references, and as I went back over the conversation I noticed that I did evade a lot of points in the conversation, and use too few words and of course since it is is an IM a lot of misspellings and shortcuts for words was used on my part, and very few on her part, as she is a legal secretary in a law firm, this type of writing is not allowed. I