| Dating is a prevalent practice among American college students that dates back to the early 1920s. Research on the history of courtship and dating coupled with a pilot study I conducted on American college students' dating beliefs and experiences hint at the complex and ambiguous nature of dating. Current research is characterized as monologic, that is, it does not allow for the complexity and ambiguity of the meaning of dating. Furthermore, monologic research unitizes the meaning of dating and places it as the backdrop against which to study different aspects such as " dating strategies," "dating expectations," " dating scripts," and "date-initiation," among others.;Given the dearth of dialogic research on dating, the purpose of this dissertation is to provide a theoretical perspective that pays close attention to the potential complexity and ambiguity of the meaning of dating. Employing Mikhail Bakhtin's theoretical framework of dialogism, I analyzed some American college students' talk about dating. In this study, 12 focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 44 participants. Data were analyzed using a Bakhtinian discourse analysis approach.;The results of the analysis rendered dating as an ambiguous social construction. The ambiguity of dating surfaced in talk at three different levels: (1) discourse markers and epistemic modal forms, (2) semantic level, and (3) socio-cultural level. Furthermore, the results show that the ambiguity of dating fulfills three functions for relational partners: (1) safety net, (2) relational mitigator, and (3) the pursuit of attention from potential partners. Implications of the results as well as limitations and directions for future research are discussed. |
