Transcript Communication Accommodation Theory

Luke Tomsha and Roberto
Hernandez
Assumption #1
Speech behavioral similarities and dissimilarities exist in
all conversations
 Past experiences form a person’s field of experience, and
those fields of experience are brought into
conversations.
 These varied experiences determine the extent to which
one person will accommodate another.
 The more similar our attitudes and beliefs, the more
attracted to and accommodating we will be to the other
person in the conversation.
Assumption #2
The manner in which we perceive the speech and behaviors of
another will determine how we evaluate a conversation
 This assumption is based around the concepts of perception
and evaluation.
 Perception is the process of attending to and interpreting a
message, whereas evaluation is the process of judging the
conversation.
 In addition, motivation is an important factor in the
perception and evaluation processes, in that while we may
perceive another person’s speech and behaviors, but we may
not always evaluate them.
Assumption #3
Language and behaviors impart information about social status
and group belonging
 This pertains to the effects that language has on others.
 Language has the ability to communicate status and group
belonging between communicators in a conversation, and the
language in a conversation will often reflect the individual
with the higher social status.
 The person of the lower social status in any conversation will
often accommodate the person of the higher social class, due
to their desire to become apart of the other person’s group or
social class.
Assumption #4
Accommodation varies in its degree of appropriateness,
and norms guide the accommodation process.
 This assumption focuses on norms and issues of social
appropriateness.
 Norms are the expectations of behavior in conversation.
 Accommodation in a conversation is not always
worthwhile and beneficial, and can at times even be
inappropriate.
Convergence

Convergence is “a strategy whereby individuals adapt to each other’s communicative
behaviors”

People may adapt to speech rate, pause, smiling, eye gaze, and other verbal and
nonverbal behaviors. This is a process we don’t always choose to utilize. When we do
choose to converge, perceptions of the other person’s speech or behaviors are relied on.

Convergence is largely based on attraction, the greater the attraction between
communicators, the more convergence happens. Attraction encompasses things like
liking, charisma, and credibility. Also, the likelihood of future interactions, ability to
communicate, and status differential. All of this is a process that occurs over time.

Convergence usually depends on whether the convergence is thoughtful, and it can be
perceived as good and bad in the communication process.

Indirect stereotyping – imposing outdated and rigid assumptions of a cultural group
upon that group.
Divergence
Divergence is a strategy used to accentuate the verbal and nonverbal differences between
communicators, or in other words, a nonaccommodation. Different from convergence in
that there are no attempts to display similarities in gestures, posture, speech rate, etc.
between speakers. There isn’t an effort made to “reduce social distance or to make
communication smoother”.
It is not an effort to disagree with one-another, it is more that two people have made a choice
to dissociate themselves from the person and the topic. It can serve as a way to maintain
a social identity and can be used deliberately to have “identity, cultural pride, and
distinctiveness”.
Divergence occurs often when there is a difference in power between communicators. This can
be seen in conversations between parent and child, physician and patient, interviewer
and interviewee, etc. Giles contend that divergence is used to contrast self-images in a
conversation. The divergence is carried out by the individual who wants to imply a
status difference between the two communicators.
Overaccommodation:
Overaccommodation is an attempt to overdo efforts in regulating, modifying, or responding to
others. It has the effect of making the target feel worse, existing in three forms: sensory
overaccommodation, dependence overaccommodation, and intergroup overaccommodation.
Sensory overaccommodation: when a speaker adapts too much to the other who is seen as limited.
This limitation is typically a linguistic or a physical one. The speaker may believe that they are
sensitive to the others disability, but is over the top with the accommodation. This can be
described as an underestimation of the other communicator.
Dependency overaccommodation: occurs when speakers place listeners in a lower-status role. The
listener is seen as dependent on the speaker, believing that they control the conversation to
show their higher status. Example: Immigrants in a new country made to feel subordinate
when speaking with others.
Intergroup overaccommodation: occurs when speakers place listeners in cultural groups without
acknowledging individual uniqueness. This usually results in listeners perceiving that they are
less than equal leading to loss of motivation, avoidance, and forming negative attitudes
towards society.
Scope of CAT
 While the theory originally was created purely to
examine speech; it was later expanded to include the
nonverbal arena.
 While some claim that this undermines the theory’s
integrity, the changing nature of Western society
suggests that this theory may need to be extensive in
order to understand multiple populations.
Criticisms of CAT
 Although there has been little scholarly critisism, there are still a
number of concerns pertaining to the testability of the concepts in
Communication Accomodation theory.
 Many scholars, for example, question the convergence-divergence
frame, and claim that conversations are too complex to be reduced
simply to these processes. They question what happens if people both
converge and diverge in a conversation, and question the roles of race
or ethnicity in the process.
 Other scholars question whether the theory relies too heavily on
rational forms of communicating. Although the theory acknowledges
conflict between communicators, it ingores the possibility that one
person in the conversation may be overly hostile or lack any sense of
reason.