CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION
7.2 Contributions and Implications of the Study
In the previous section, we outlined the major findings and responded to the research questions we proposed in our study. Next, based on the significant findings we already established, we will further discuss the contributions and the implications of the present study.
First, we study romantic confession as a process of romantic persuasion and develop models to demonstrate how romantic confessors and confessees adopt persuasive, refusal, and acceptance strategies to achieve communicative purposes. The models in our study, which group the communicative strategies into the categories of reward-based strategies, punishment-based strategies, altruism-based strategies, and rationale-based strategies, have allowed a more systematic comparisons between the strategy selections of romantic confessors and confessees to be made. Through the
quantitative results and qualitative analyses in the data, it is found that the preferences of interlocutors’ using reward-based and rationale-based strategies may exemplify the
fact that a good romantic persuasion should consist of both rationally and emotionally appealing elements. In addition, it should be noted that the present study is one of the first researches to propose models for persuasive, refusal, and acceptance strategies
based on real-time conversation data of romantic confessions on a reality dating TV show. Adopting the inductive method and following the conversation analysis procedure (Seedhouse, 2004) as a guideline, our study examines romantic confession on a discourse and conversation level and develops models that comprehensively represent the strategies used by the confessors and confessees in our data.
Second, the present research is one of the first studies to establish the discourse structure for romantic confession. Based on the data collected in the current study, we develop a four-stage discourse structure for romantic confession. Our findings have shown that throughout the course of the romantic confession, the roles of the interlocutors shift from stages to stages. It is also found that despite having a general direction of conversation development, interlocutors will often intentionally skip certain stages or go back and forth between stages due to various reasons (stylistic preference, face-mitigation, co-construction, etc.). With the proposal of a comparatively more complex and non-linear structure, we provide a general picture of the conversational process in romantic confession context as well as demonstrate the conversational and interactive nature in romantic confession discourse.
Third, the research is also one of the pioneering studies to examine the effects of conversational interaction and co-construction between confessors and confessees in the context of romantic confessions. From the analyses and discussions of the
communicative strategies identified in our models and the discourse structure of romantic confession proposed in our study, it is found in our data that co-construction between the confessors and the confessees can be an important factor determining the types of strategies that would be used in different stages of romantic confessions.
From the perspective of confession and romantic relationship initiation, this finding may have important implications on the ways to persuade, reject, or accept in a romantic confession for both the confessors and the confessees. To begin with, our analyses on the effect of co-construction and strategy use may suggest the importance to pay attention and be flexible in devising strategies according to the statements made by the interlocutor. In other words, adopting appropriate persuasive strategies at the right time can lead to the success or the failure of the confession in romantic persuasions. As for the confessees, if the strategies used to reject the confessors are not carefully chosen, they might risk hurting the confessors and feeling bad afterward themselves for making
the situation uncomfortable for the two parties. In everyday life (and not on TV), this might be important because hurting the other person’s face might cause the confessee to
lose a dear friend or sometimes even bring danger to himself or herself if the confessors are provoked to become violent because of the frustration and humiliation they experience along with the rejection. On the other hand, if the confessee is also interested in the confessor, by playing hard to get or not using the right strategies to encourage the
confessor to continue the confession, it might be possible that the confessor would misinterpret the situation and end up giving up on establishing a relationship with the confessor. Thus, our study may provide us with further insights on the role of language in relationship initiation and the ways to increase the chances for attaining confession goals.
Lastly, the results and analyses of our study has identified subtle gender differences and the effects of TV show format and public image on the strategy selection of confessors and confessees. However, it should be noted that the goal of our study is not to establish any of these factors as critical influences governing the strategy use of
interlocutors in romantic confessions. Instead, through the analyses of possible sociocultural factors behind interlocutors’ choices of strategy, we attempt to highlight
the fact that romantic confession as well as conversation in general is an intricate process that may be influenced by various elements. More studies would have to be conducted before we can gain further understanding of the specific factors behind the strategy selection process of interlocutors.
7.3 Suggestions for Future Research
As discussed in the previous section, our study has provided fruitful findings for the field of romantic discourse as well as persuasion, refusal, and acceptance studies.
Nevertheless, there are still some directions for future research to pursue.
Our study is one of the first studies to include such a large amount of data from a reality TV dating show to study romantic confessions. Although reality TV show may be a representation of the society and can provide us with a view of the way people verbally and nonverbally interaction (Hall, 1982), data from real-life and everyday interaction of potential couples is still required before a fuller picture on romantic confessions can be revealed. Future research can invite and recruit potential relationship partners as participants and acquire realistic recordings of their confession process as data for further romantic confession discourse studies. Furthermore, since the research goal of our study is to establish a general picture of romantic confession discourse, we processed only the confession segment of the show (and did not pay as much attention to their interaction in previous segments). It should be noted that in romantic relationship initiation, previous interactions are also crucial in influencing the decision and the means in making a romantic confession (Bredow, Cate, and Huston, 2008).
Researchers in the future can perhaps further interview and observe (potential) partners on their earlier interactions to examine their effects on relationship initiation and establishment.
The current study develops models of persuasive, refusal, and acceptance strategies used in the process of romantic persuasion with data collected in the study. Although the
models in our study are complete representations of our data, they may not be the most exhaustive representations of all the communicative strategies that could be adopted by confessors and confessees in romantic confessions. Future studies can thus be conducted to confirm or refine the three models in our study. In addition, the present study has provided thorough analyses on each of the strategies proposed in our models.
Nevertheless, we have also noticed that many of these strategies often co-occur or appear in certain sequences. For instance, in terms of co-occurrence, the confessees often use a combination of thanks, reason, and statement of regret in a speaking turn to indicate their rejection. As for the sequencing of strategies, examples can be seen from how the persuasive strategy of debt frequently follows the strategy of ingratiation. Due to the aim and the scope of the current study, we were only able to present some observations of such usages. Studies in the future can investigate in details the phenomena of co-occurrence and sequencing of communicative strategies and further determine their roles in the context of romantic persuasion.
The results and analyses of our study cover several possible linguistic and sociocultural factors (gender differences, stylistic differences, TV show format, public image, etc.) behind interlocutors’ choices of strategy and communicative behaviors.
These discussions demonstrate that romantic confession and conversation in general are a complex process that may be influenced by various components. Nevertheless, the
degree of influence these factors have on people’s communicative behaviors in romantic confession still awaits the investigation of future studies. Another thing worth noticing is that we have also observed a tendency of “mirroring” in the interlocutors’ strategy use.
That is, the confessors and confessees are seen to “mirror” each other in the categories of strategies they use in the confession. For instance, when confessors adopt reward-based persuasive strategies such as ingratiation and/or promise, the confessees would often respond with reward-based strategies like thanks and/or compliment. The same can also be seen when confessors use punishment-based strategies like aversive stimulation and/or threat in the confession; confessees would usually respond to such strategies with punishment-based refusal strategies such as criticism and/or threat as well. In addition, confessors and confessees are found to be more inclined to using rationale-based strategies when the person they are talking to are also using strategies
from this category. Future research can further explore our observations of the
“mirroring” phenomenon as well as the determining factors and effectiveness of this
strategy selection pattern in romantic persuasion.
Finally, the present research is one of the pioneering studies that contribute to the field of romantic discourse analysis by studying romantic confession, a type of conversation that is important at the initial stage of a romantic relationship. Nonetheless, more studies are required to examine the different types of conversations between
romantic couples (phone calls between lovers, wedding proposals, breakup conversations, etc.) before we can uncover more secrets between language, love, and romantic relationship.
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