Bruce Bower in his well-written article in “Science Today entitled “Shared Talking Styles Herald New and Lasting Romance” argues that” language style matching” is a communication asset between two people, then the reverse scenario of both employing different communication styles does nothing to help the interpersonal relationship between them. The reason for this is simple and only common sense. When two individuals talk or communicate to each other, then the use of similar language styles is usually a step forward towards better communications. Better communication means better comprehension, better empathy and therefore better quality of interpersonal relationships. So far so good, but Bower makes the big blunder when he tries to link this language style matching with romance.
Communication is a very important term in Management Science. The success (or failure) of a good manager depends upon his prowess in communication. A good manager has to communicate to his sub-ordinates as to what work and the work quantity that has been delegated to them and at the same time, good managers also have to inform his superiors as to what has been done as per plan. Spoken styles of language tend to differ in a huge no of ways. This is the reason why we feel a profound empathy when we come across someone new, occasionally. The other person communicates with us in a style which matches our own style of communication and hence the empathy or the ‘strange attraction’.
Therefore if you meet someone who, on communication with you gives you the strangest feeling that this person has met you before and yet yore confident that you have never met him or her, think about it- the reason is only common sense after all. When language styles differ, communication of an idea or thought to your partner, takes a little time to be conveyed and even then, certain aspects may not be clear to the Partner. However, if what your partner is saying is something like ‘predictive text option’ in mobile phone texting then the chances are very much
high that you have a close relationship with the other person.
Good communication can also lead to conflict on a regular basis however. Bower quotes James Pennebaker, (Psychologist) as saying “ An interesting irony is that two people who truly hate each other will often exhibit language style matching to high values generally”(Bower 2010)
Now, for the experiment on similar language styles, I took details of IM records of digital conversation I had with a good female friend of friend of mine. As this friend is happily married, our relationship is devoid of any possible romance. I inserted our conversation as per the directions and the web site gave me the result of 0.9. I took another portion of the transcript and this time found the common language style ratio as 0.6. Why this difference? On checking I found the first transcript to have several longish conversations whereas, in the second both of us had used the usual short cuts in IM’s etc. [Putting 2day in lieu of “today”]. There can be no other reason for these varied answers but the content type. Here we see that the amount of synchrocity you have with someone can be changed easily, which shows that similarity of language style scores cannot be accurate. In test 2, I will say that it is possible for us to see the possible quality of our interpersonal relationship. The method of communication is also very much dependent upon the manner of. In observation, the method of communication affects the communication results in different ways.
All this is made quite evident in the book “communication Miracles for couples” which I will recommend for anyone going through a tortured interpersonal relationship.
References:-
Bower, Bill, 2010“Shared talking Styles herald New and Lasting Romance” Science today, Available at www.usnews.com/science [Accessed on 18/04/2012]
Robinson J.(2009): Communication Miracles for Couples”; Conari Press, San Francisco, California
