Managing Relationships

Verbal communication’s final, and arguably most profound, function in our lives is to help us manage our relationships. We use language to create relationships by declaring powerful, intimate feelings to others: “You are beautiful!” or “You are the best friend I could ever have.” Verbal communication is the principal means through which we maintain our ongoing relationships with lovers, family members, friends, and coworkers (Stafford, 2011). For example, romantic partners who verbally communicate frequently with each other, and with their partners’ friends and families, experience less uncertainty in their relationships and are not as likely to break up as those who verbally communicate less often (Parks, 2007). Finally, most of the heartbreaks we’ll experience in our lives are preceded by verbal messages that state, in one form or another, “It’s over.” We’ll discuss more about how we forge, maintain, and end our relationships in Chapters 10 through 12.

LearningCurve

Chapter 7