Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Specialization

Communication and Leadership

School or Department

School of Leadership Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Alexa Dare

Second Advisor

Dr. Nobuya Inagaki

Abstract

War has been happening for centuries. Women have been in the United States Armed Forces since the War of Independence in 1775, with very little research done on how war affects these women once on the home front. The purpose of my research is to evaluate the role of communication because of being a female in a combat zone at a time of war, and how it has affected the female‘s life back home once returned. Specifically, I used Relational Dialectic Theory and Expectancy Violations Theory as a basis of ethnographic research and one on one interviews to research the questions: After returning from combat, how has your communication strategies used while in combat affected your communication once home from war? How has the role of being a female in a combat zone affected their interpersonal life? Overall, the results showed that communication acquired while being in several intercultural relationships for these women warriors did have a negative effect on their personal lives once home. The open-closedness dialectic was affected by these deployments, as well as the autonomy-connection that is needed for a relationship to survive was affected negatively by these deployments.

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