THE FIRST IMPRESSION MATTERS: THE ART OF MALE ROMANTIC COMMUNICATION IN AMERICAN MEDIA DATING CULTURE

Abstract

The study investigates the communicative strategy ‘Making the first impression’ within the communicative style and tradition of Masculine Romantic Discourse at the stage ‘Initiation of Romantic Relationship’. The masculine communicative strategy ‘Making the first impression’ is aimed at achieving the communicative goal – to impress a female addressee for a limited time. The research demonstrates the potential of the complex approach to the study of interpersonal communicative effectiveness and the causes of communication failures. It comprises interdependent variables such as the objective and the subjective integrative features, as well as the strategic ways, namely what should be said (semantics) and how it should be said (discourse features via verbal means). The initial dyadic interaction was implemented by masculine communicative moves within pragmatic communication models. The masculine communicative moves were sourced from an American dating and relationship reality television series The Bachelorette US released from 2012 to 2018. The results revealed that the successful pragmatic communication model included relevant and variable masculine communicative moves, providing the pragmatic foundations of the relationship.