Stroking

I learned a new meaning of the work stroking pertaining to the storytelling experience and in communication discourse among and between people while in Linguistics this summer. Stroking, I learned, in discourse and storytelling is a kind of conversational grooming which goes on during dialogue to build rapport and disarm listeners so that engagement between those in verbal discourse is positive, effective, and a relationship building strategy. It is also an involvement strategy as well. Figurative stroking is getting somebody's attention and in verbal linguistics to verbally touch or stroke somebody as opposed to a physical stroking or touch. The two are parallel but have similar meanings in context of physical versus linguistic use. They both can have emotional side effects, good, tender, and should add gentleness and have a disarming affect on the physical, as in therapy, and the mental and emotional when used linguistically to build rapport, easiness, comfort in a conversational/story setting. A good example of stroking in conversational use would have been my agreeing with Jessica, the lady that I interviewed in a conversational story setting, during our conversation. Continual positive feedback, verbally agreeing, complementing during the conversation, all helped to make Jessica more comfortable and feel more safe with me in talking freely and telling her story. Professional colleagues do this when in their writing, they credit other colleagues which is a stroking device to build rapport with other professionals in their realm and gain more credibility in their writing and reporting.