Essay on Talking Styles

Essay on Talking Styles Essay on Talking Styles Essay on Talking StylesA novel approach to assessing whether people are paying significant attention to each other is language matching. According to the findings of the research team headed by James Pennebaker and Molly Ireland, the degree of similarity in the patterns of use of function words (such as pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, negations and articles) is a significant predictor of the attentiveness of people towards each other (Science News, 2010). Experimental data prove that the chances for romantic relationships and for generally good connection between people increase in the presence of strong language matching.According to Pennebaker (2014), language matching score can be used to estimate the quality of interpersonal communications. Language matching score is a number ranging from 0.5 to 1, where score of 0.5 denotes the lowest degree of language matching and 1 denotes the highest degree of language matching (Pennebaker, 2014). Pennebaker (2014) states that higher l anguage style matching scores are associated with higher quality of relationships as well as higher longevity.For assessing language style matching, I selected an everyday conversation with the help of instant messages between me and my colleague with whom we were volunteering together. Our gender is the same, and I am 10 years younger. In general, we went along quite well and it was expected that the language matching score would be high. However, the resulting language matching score was only 0.62, which is below average. According to Pennebaker (2014), typical language matching scores fall in the range between 0.75 and 0.95, with average score being 0.84. In my opinion, the resulting language matching score was too low; most likely, it was decreased by the differences in age and social status. However, these factors did not have a significant impact on getting along with the colleague; therefore, the results of language matching are notably biased.The degree of language matching depends on a variety of factors such as age and social position of the people participating in the conversation, their relatedness, the type of communication analyzed, the genre of communication chosen by every person, etc. Therefore, it cannot be viewed as a direct predictor of the quality of interpersonal relationships.According to Cigoli Gennari (2010), language style score is rather a marker of social engagement as a marker of attraction between people. In particular, people who are intensively arguing with each other are likely to have similar language styles (Science News, 2010). Furthermore, people from similar background are likely to have similar language styles even if their personalities are quite different and if they do not get along well. Hence, language matching reflects rather the extent of social similarity between people rather than the level of attraction between them (Cigoli Gennari, 2010).In my opinion, language style matching is one of the factors which might influence the quality of interpersonal relationships. The use of language and the similarity of meanings that people put into their words play an important role in the process of building relationships. The smoother the communication between people is, the easier it will be for them to understand each other and to build a connection.At the same time, language style matching should not be viewed as a definitive predictor of the quality of interpersonal relationships. In other words, if two people have low language style matching scores, this does not necessarily mean that they are not paying attention to each other or that they cannot build a relationship. The couples where the spouses are of different origin and speak different languages can be used to illustrate the idea that language matching is not the core variable for building relationships.Although research shows that it is in general more difficult for such couples to understand each other (Cigoli Gennari, 2010), there do e xist successful examples showing that the presence of shared values, goals and feelings for each other is more fundamental for relationships than language style matching. Therefore, language style matching score can be viewed as a variable which can either encourage or hinder the development of interpersonal relationships (in the case of high and low score accordingly), but which does not have such a defining impact on the relationship as more in-depth factors such as beliefs and values do. Hence, it is not reasonable to use language style matching as a predictor in interpersonal relationships.