Article Critique: Shared Talking Styles Herald New and Lasting Romance

Article Critique: Shared Talking Styles Herald New and Lasting Romance

A critical analysis of the paper which is titled as “Shared Talking Styles Herald New and Lasting Romance” asserts that verbal communication plays a vital and essential role in relationships (Bowers 2010). People may develop many different relationships during their lifetime. These relationships may range from family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, bosses, and lovers. It is believed that if two people are similar in their speech patterns and their use of function words, they are psychologically compatible. Researchers are using this technology to evaluate natural speech to determine this compatibility. This paper will assess whether similar communication patterns and attributes result in longer and stable relationships (Burgoon 1998).

A study published in Psychological Science says that people with similar language styles stay in relationships longer than those whose styles are dissimilar. This study is referring to the use of function words. Function phrases are words that have little meaning by themselves but when they are mixed with other words, these phrases can significantly help to convey the intended yet covert messages in relationships. These words can be: prepositions such as of, at, and in; pronouns such as he, they, and it; and determiners such as a, that, and my, to name a few (Burleson et al., 2000).

Research shows that relationships are defined by the use of function words in communication and it can determine how long a relationship lasts. For instance, if two people who are looking for a potential mate uses such words as “we” and “our,” it is said the relationship will last because they are on the same page and want the same things. On the other hand, if one partner says “my” and “mine” and the other says “our” and ...