Why we mimic some language styles

"When two people start a conversation, they usually begin talking alike within a matter of seconds," said James Pennebaker, psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

"This also happens when people read a book or watch a movie. As soon as the credits roll, they find themselves talking like the author or the central characters," he said.

Pennebaker and Molly E Ireland found that if a question was asked in a dry, confusing way, the students answered accordingly. If it was asked in a flighty, 'Valley girl' way, the students punctuated their answers with 'like',  'sorta' and 'kinda'.

The style-matching approach proved to be a powerful bellwether of marriages as well. "Style words in the spouses' poems were more similar during happier periods of their relationships and less synchronised towards the end," the researchers wrote.

Ireland and Pennebaker are investigating whether LSM during everyday conversation could be used to predict the beginning and end of romantic relationships.

The study was published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.