Abstract
The present study analyzes male/female couples' use of conversation to develop romantic relationships. It focuses upon Knapp's first four stages of relational development: initiating, experimenting, intensifying, and integrating. The study attempts to determine whether or not specific conversational features are used consistently by courtship couples to create and develop romantic relationships. A conversational analysis was performed on all of the male/female courtship couples' conversation from ten Harelquin romance novels. The examination determined that three specific features of conversation recurred throughout the four stages of relational development: meta‐talk, face‐threatening acts, and mitigation.
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