Several years ago, a TV commercial let viewers eavesdrop on an
intimate conversation between a man and woman enjoying dinner at a
restaurant. The woman leaned in close to the man and earnestly said, "I
love you." She waited for his reply, which would surely affirm he loved
her too. However, instead of a response, there was silence, which became
increasingly uncomfortable. Understandably, after the woman couldn't
take the silence any longer, she rushed to the exit. Just after she is
out of earshot, the man finally responds: "I love you, too."
This
commercial provides a great example of an adjacency pair that ends with a
dispreferred response. An adjacency pair consists of one person's
utterance that necessitates an immediate reply or reaction from the
other member of the conversation. Usually, the other member has two
options for responding: One is the preferred reaction, what is expected
as the reply. The other response is the dispreferred answer, what is
unexpected, less ordinary, and more difficult to give.
In the
commercial, the man provided a dispreferred answer because he did not
supply an immediate response. His silence was an unexpected reaction,
which became very awkward for the man and even more so for the woman.
When the woman expressed her love for the man, she expected to hear him
immediately profess his corresponding love for her. Such a response
would have been a preferred answer. Even though the man did eventually
confirm his love, his answer was still dispreferred. He had waited too
long for his response to match her expectation. The uneasy pause was too
big to mend.
Adjacency Pairs
This commercial and the idea
of adjacency pairs led me to wonder how often this specific situation
occurs. The phrase "I love you" or a comparable assertion is the
definite start of an adjacency pair. Typically, an individual does not
express his or her love to someone without expecting to hear an
immediate reply-and the reply is expected to be a preferred response.
Love is extremely personal and invites vulnerability. As such, (most)
people do not express their love in a frivolous manner. Doing so,
without already believing the other person felt similarly, could easily
result in embarrassment-something people tend to avoid. Thus, "I love
you" functions as a tag, indicating a response is necessary and that the
reply should equally profess love. Indeed, most adjacency pairs
involving this phrase do follow this pattern, with the preferred answer
being given. It seems to be almost an automatic, unconscious response.
When someone tells me that they love me, I often begin to return with "I
love you, too" before I truly realize what I am saying. For instance, a
few weeks ago I was talking with my brother-in-law on the phone. As the
conversation was ending, he told me he loved me, and then I immediately
reciprocated the term of affection. My response was entirely sincere,
but still, it seemed to be an automatic reply-I didn't really think
about before I gave it.
Which Is Better: Dispreferred Answer of Insincerity?
Since
it appears that a preferred response to "I love you" is standard and
practically engrained into individuals from the first years of life, I
wondered how often this expected response is sincere and how often it is
used as a way to avoid a difficult situation. Of all adjacency pairs, I
can think of few (okay, none) for which hearing the dispreferred answer
would be worse than when it's a response to "I love you." Because
people avoid causing embarrassment-to themselves and to others-the
decision to give a dispreferred and potentially humiliating response is a
difficult one to make. It could be quite tempting for an individual to
reciprocate the words of love-and then pretend to move to another
country to avoid seeing the person ever again-rather than to deal with
the immediate effects of giving a dispreferred response. How can you
give a dispreferred answer without being hurtful? With the issue of
love, it is quite tricky. There really is no other reply to give. What
can one say? "Thank you"? "Sorry, but I don't love you"? I would rather
actually move to another country than hear one of those responses to my
expression of love.
Putting It to the Test
Curious about
others' perspectives, I decided to ask several people what they would do
in such a situation. Truthfully, I was surprised (but relieved) that
they all indicated they would not give a preferred answer. Though they
admitted it would be difficult, they would not give an insincere but
expected reply. One person had even been in such a situation once. When a
girl said she loved him, he remained silent. The situation certainly
became awkward because of his dispreferred response. Interestingly,
though he gave what is socially considered a dispreferred response, his
honesty corresponded with other expectations of communication, such as
the Gricean maxim of quality (we'll leave exploration of that topic for
another article).
Communication is a challenging process, with
many protocols and expectations. Adjacency pairs and the possible
responses are just one example of the important but often complex
mechanics of conversation. While some types of responses are preferred
and others are dispreferred, both are important and each are used,
despite the negative effects that may result. Dispreferred responses are
given even in the most difficult situations, such as in issues of love.
Even dispreferred responses facilitate increased communication and help
conversations maintain structure.
By Suzy Bills
Suzy is a professional editor and writer with
more than eight years of experience. She has worked on projects for
multiple industries (e.g., higher education, business, health, and
marketing), for various genres, and for numerous different audiences.
She has shared her editing and writing skills with others through
developing grammar, writing, and editing training and tutorials. She has
also provided training to editors in corporate environments.
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