Introduction
Language Style Matching websites, in essence, depend on the conversations or the chats that people may have with the aim of determining the extent to which they are close. Normally, the scores range from .5 to 1. In essence, where the relationship between the two parties is strong, then the score becomes high and gets closer to the 1 mark. However, when the relationship between the two parties is not close, then a poor mark is scored. In most circumstances, the approach of style-matching has been employed. One of the trends that have been experienced is that this approach cannot be fully relied upon for a number of reasons. For instance, even at occasions when couples have proved to be at their highest point, the calculations have produced low sync results. In other cases, poor relationships have been matched, produced high sync. This effectively puts the credibility of the approach in doubt.
In the experiment, I typed in a conversation between my girlfriend and me. Authoritatively, the relationship is very close, and communication is done on a daily basis. The calculation given by the Language Style Matching mechanism, however, did not reveal the closeness. Contrary to the expectations, the score was closer to the .5 mark which hints at a poor relationship than the expected 1, which would have revealed the closeness that exists between us. Such results that indicate a different level of the relationship’s strength or weakness are not to be trusted. When analyzing the functional words to study the nature of the relationships, the feelings of the parties are usually ignored. Hypothetically, relationships are all about feelings rather than words. For instance, when strangers meet in the social sites, their conversations can be characterized by a lot of lies. However, the Language Style Matching approach will just pick the function words and make a calculation on how they are used to determining the sync. This ends up giving a different perspective.
In determining the closeness the two parties in a relationship have, the language style matching system takes into account the similarity in how they talk to one another. In most cases, the approach analyzes the pattern of the function words to predict the outcome of the match. The function words may include the conjunctions, pronouns, articles, negations and the prepositions that are used by the parties in a communication (Sole, 2011). In essence, arguments have been made to the effect that the function words augur well for stable relationships and romantic interest that is mutual. ‘Conversation partners' related use of function words such as pronouns augur well for mutual romantic interest and stable relationships’ (Bower, 2010), being the case that most of the proponents of this style have proposed. However, it is difficult to conclude that this approach gives the correct position as far as relationships are concerned.
References
Bower, B. (2010, November 22). Shared Talking Styles Herald New and Lasting Romance - US News. Retrieved March 26, 2010, from http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/11/22/shared-talking-styles-herald-new-and-lasting-romance
Sole, K. (2011). Making connections: Introduction to Human Communication. San Diego: Bridge point Education, Inc.
