What are the four principles of communication accommodation theory? They are categorized into four main components: the sociohistorical context, the communicators' accommodative orientation, the immediate situation and evaluation and future intentions.
What are the core processes of Communication Accommodation theory?
"The theory's core processes of convergence and divergence make it relatively easy to understand, underscoring the simplicity of the theory". Researchers of communication accommodation theory who have been interested in conversations between the elderly and the young, actively apply this theory to analyze intergenerational communication situations.
What are the practical applications of accommodation theory?
Accommodation theory also possessed practical applications in the development of learning a second language. This was seen when the student's education of and proficiency in said language was either assisted or hindered by accommodative measures.
What is Giles Communication Accommodation theory?
Communication accommodation theory ( CAT) is a theory of communication developed by Howard Giles. This theory concerns " (1) the behavioral changes that people make to attune their communication to their partner, and (2) the extent to which people perceive their partner as appropriately attuning to them."
What is convergence in Communication Accommodation theory?
Communication accommodation theory. "Convergence" refers to strategies through which individuals adapt to each other's communicative behaviors to reduce these social differences. Meanwhile, "divergence" refers to the instances in which individuals accentuate the speech and non-verbal differences between themselves and their interlocutors.
What are the characteristics of communication accommodation theory?
Features of Communication Accommodation Theory Accent, speed, vocabulary, cadence, gestures are some accommodations done. It is done to fit in a group or social status. It shows agreement, belonging and affinity. People only show their positive sides while communicating.
How many types do accommodation theory has?
Accommodation theory attempts to explain how people adjust the way they talk depending on who the audience is. Generally, there are two ways in which a person can adjust their speech. The two ways are convergence and divergence.
Why do we use the communication accommodation theory?
Communication accommodation theory elaborates the human tendency to adjust their behaviour while interacting. The reason behind this behaviour is explained as to control the social differences between the interactants.
What is the meaning of accommodation theory?
Linguistics Sociology. (More fully "communication accommodation theory", "speech accommodation theory") a theoretical approach which analyses the manner in which people adjust their style of speech or interaction in accordance with or in response to that of their interlocutors.
What is accommodation theory in sociolinguistics?
Accommodation theory holds that speakers adjust their language style in relation to their interlocutors. The basic forms of accommodation are convergence or divergence, where speakers shift style to become either more or less like that of their addressees.
What year was the communication accommodation theory?
1971COMMUNICATION ACCOMODATION THEORY. First conceived by communication professor Howard Giles in 1971, Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) was mainly about speech, but then adapted to involve verbal and nonverbal communication (Hordila-Vatamanescu, 2010).
What are the 5 principles of communication privacy management theory?
The listed elements provide understanding of how we can better understand communication between people about their own information. The five core theory elements are private information, private boundaries, control and ownership, rule-based management, and privacy management.
What does accommodating mean in communication?
In linguistics, accommodation is the process by which participants in a conversation adjust their accent, diction, or other aspects of language according to the speech style of the other participant. Also called linguistic accommodation, speech accommodation, and communication accommodation.
What is communication accommodation theory?
Communication accommodation theory is related to social psychology. The theory was known as Speech Accommodation Theory until it included non-verbal aspects of communication then it became popular as ‘Communication Accommodation’ Theory. The theory is related to social identity theory. The theory talks about, people wanting to portray their ...
What are the factors of accommodation activities?
The factors of accommodation activities are gestures and words.
How does communication affect social status?
Communication also establishes social status as people tend to adopt the communication behavior of people who are higher in social status than theirs. The theory is related to four socio-psychological theories: similarity, attraction theory, social exchange process theory, causal attribution process theory and intergroup distinctiveness theory.
What are the concepts of counter accommodation?
There are other concepts like counter accommodation, under accommodation and over accommodation which affects the effects of communication accommodation theory. It can either be beneficial or unfavorable. It includes psychological, social and linguistic behavior of interactants.
What is accommodation process?
One of them is convergence, which is a process of people naturally tending to adapt other communicators’ way of communicating to connect and decrease their social differences. The other one is divergence, which is a process of non-adaptation ...
What is divergence in communication?
The other one is divergence, which is a process of non-adaptation of communication characteristics and accentuation of social and nonverbal communication differences. The people involved and situation of communication decides which accommodation process is used. If a person is interacting with another with very high standards, ...
What is accommodation in communication?
Accommodation is usually considered to be between the message sender and the message receiver, but the communicator also often accommodates to a larger audience- either a group of people that are watching the interaction or society in general.
How does the communication accommodation theory explain the perception of a family towards homosexuality?
A research paper uses the basis of the Communication Accommodation Theory along with Intergroup Communication and relational Satisfaction to explain the perception of a family towards homosexuality and how family communication dynamics are impacted when one of the family member has a different sexual identity. In fact, the study was conducted to understand how to parent such a child and the consequences of disclosure on the communication in the family. Sexual identity can be a challenging discussion for a family and revealing one's preferred identity led to topic avoidance under intergroup anxiety and the relational satisfaction was negatively viewed. Such a constrained communication made the individuals feel that their relationship with the family member was less fulfilling and eventually less satisfying.
Why is convergence important in communication?
Converging also increases the effectiveness of communication, which in turn lowers uncertainty, interpersonal anxiety, and increases mutual understanding. This is another factor that motivates people to converge. People adapt their communication behaviors to establish common ground with another individual.
How does accommodation theory help people?
Accommodation theory was thought to either aid them by promoting them to "fulfill their communicative and life potentials", or by hindering them from reaching their full potential by focusing on the disability that made them different rather than the other characteristics that made them similar to their peers.
Why do people use convergence or divergence in communication?
Since speech is a way to express group membership, people adopt convergence or divergence in communication to "signal a salient group distinctiveness, so as to reinforce a social identity". Communication accommodation thus, becomes a tool to emphasize group distinctiveness in a positive way, and strengthen the individual's social identity.
Who studied the interaction of young and elderly persons in business settings?
Giles has studied the interaction of young and elderly persons in business settings using communication accommodation as a theoretical framework. Findings demonstrated that elderly persons tend to be less accommodating than their younger counterparts.
What is similarity attraction?
Similarity-attraction. Similarity-attraction is one of the biggest contributors to the theory of Communication Accommodation. The similarity-attraction theory posits that "The more similar our attitudes and beliefs are to those of others, the more likely it is for them to be attracted to us.".
Who developed the communication accommodation theory?
Origins of Communication Accommodation Theory. Howard Giles, who was a professor of linguistics and psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), developed Communication Accommodation Theory.
When was communication accommodation theory first introduced?
First introduced in 1971, Communication Accommodation Theory, which was known as Speech Accommodation Theory at the time, says that when humans talk to each other, they tend to change the way they talk to match the way the listener talks. Whether you realize it or not, and it can be either conscious or unconscious, you match your accent, ...
Why is Giles' theory considered to be sound?
Giles’ theory is generally considered to be sound because few researchers have been able to successfully challenge it. However, critics of the theory point out that conversations often seem to be too complex to be broken down into components as simple as convergence and divergence.
What is effective communication?
Effective communication is a connection between people that allows for the exchange of thoughts, feelings, and ideas, and leads to mutual understanding. This exchange is evidenced when a speaker sends a message to which a listener responds. It seems simple, but it isn’t.
What is the verbal part of communication?
3. Every message has both content and feeling. Every message consists of content and feeling.
What happens if the words a speaker uses don't match up with his or her tone of voice?
In other words, if the words a speaker uses don’t match up with his or her tone of voice, facial expression, body language, and other nonverbal cues, the listener will pay more attention to and believe the nonverbal behavior.
Is it possible to not communicate?
It is impossible to not communicate. All actions—both intentional and unintentional—communicate certain messages. For example, deliberately ignoring someone is not “not communicating.”. Quite the contrary (as you know if you’ve been on the receiving end), this action sends a strong message.
Is communication between two people a big deal?
We generally figure that the communication between two or more people is no big deal. It just works. However, the reality is very different—the process of communication is actually impressively complex. There are many factors that ultimately determine whether a particular communication experience is likely to be successful or not.
Concepts in Communication Accommodation Theory
Features of Communication Accommodation Theory
- People tend to match the way they talk to the way listener talks.
- It can be conscious or unconscious.
- Accent, speed, vocabulary, cadence, gestures are some accommodations done.
- It is done to fit in a group or social status.
Examples of Communication Accommodation Theory
- When a junior employee in an organization is talking to a higher level employee, both the people tend to accommodate each other by realizing their differences in social status and rankings or positions. The junior tries to talk in a respectful manner and a pretense to know many things to accommodate the senior and the senior tries to make the junior comfortable by accepting the re…
Criticisms of Communication Accommodation Theory
- People who realize communication accommodation of the other person can take the person as fake or pretentious.
- If not realized, it makes people comfortable in interaction and increases their being fond of you.
- Sometimes it can also be taken as mockery.
- People who realize communication accommodation of the other person can take the person as fake or pretentious.
- If not realized, it makes people comfortable in interaction and increases their being fond of you.
- Sometimes it can also be taken as mockery.
- Converging people show power than what they really possess which can also make them seem intimidating.
Overview
Communication accommodation theory (CAT) is a theory of communication developed by Howard Giles. This theory concerns "(1) the behavioral changes that people make to attune their communication to their partner, (2) the extent to which people perceive their partner as appropriately attuning to them." The basis of the theory lies in the idea that people adjust (or accommodate) their style of speech to one another. Doing this helps the message sender gain a…
Assumptions
Many of the principles and concepts from social identity theory are also applicable to communication accommodation theory. Under the influence of social psychology, especially social identity theory, communication accommodation theory are guided by mainly four assumptions.
• There are speech and behavioral similarities and dissimilarities in all conversations.
Social psychology and social identity theory
Like speech accommodation theory, communication accommodation theory continues to draw from social psychology, particularly from four main socio-psychology theories: similarity-attraction, social exchange, causal attribution and intergroup distinctiveness. These theories help to explain why speakers seek to converge or diverge from the language, dialect, accent and behavior of their interlocutors. CAT also relies heavily in social identity theory. This latter theory …
Convergence and divergence
Convergence refers to the process through which an individual shifts speech patterns in interaction so that they more closely resemble the speech patterns of speech partners. People can converge through many features of communication such as their use of language, their "pronunciation, pause and utterance lengths, vocal intensities, non verbal behaviors, and intimacy of self disclosures" (Giles and Smith, 1979, 46), but they do not necessarily have to converge sim…
Components
Further research conducted by Gallois et al. in 1995 has expanded the theory to include 17 propositions that influence these processes of convergence and divergence. They are categorized into four main components: the sociohistorical context, the communicators' accommodative orientation, the immediate situation and evaluation and future intentions. These components are essential to Communication accommodation Theory and affect the course and outcome of inter…
In action
In 1991, Giles, Coupland, and Coupland expressed the belief that a "more qualitative perspective" would be necessary to get more diverse and clarifying explanations of the behaviors presented within varying contexts. They referred to this as "the applied perspective" that showed accommodation theory as a vital part of day-to-day activity as opposed to solely being a theoretical construct. They sought to "demonstrate how the core concepts and relationships inv…
Criticisms
The Communication Accommodation Theory has obtained scholarly criticism by the three scholars Judee Burgon, Leesa Dillman, and Lesa Stern. These scholars question the "convergence-divergence frame... [and] they believe that conversations are too complex to be reduced simply to the processes of the Communication Accommodation theory. They also challenge the notion that people's accommodation can be explained by just the practice of [conv…
Application
The Communication Accommodation theory focuses "on the role of conversations in our lives". It has been incorporated into "the mass media (Bell, 1991), with families (Fox, 1999), with Chinese students (Hornsey and Gallois, 1998), with elderly (Harwood, 2002), on the job (McCroskey and Richmond, 2000), in interviews (Willemyns, Gallois, Callan, and Pittam, 1997), and even with messages left on telephone answering machines (Buzzanell, Burrell, Stafford, and Berkowitz, 19…