ACCOMODATION

THEORY
Howard Giles
Outline
• • What is Communication Accommodation Theory?
• • Social Psychology and Social Identity
• • Assumptions of Communication Accommodation
Theory
• • Ways to Adapt
• – Convergence
• – Divergence
• – Overaccommodation
What is accommodation?
• defined as the ability to adjust, modify, or
regulate one’s behavior in response to
another.-
Dr. Howard Giles
• We feel the need of adapting to
different environments and that
we do so by accommodating to
others in how we write, speak, or
even dress.
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION
ACCOMMODATION THEORY?
• - underlying motivations and consequences of
what happens when two speakers shift their
communication styles.
• During communication encounters, people will
try to accommodate or adjust their style of
speaking to others.
Social Psychology
• According to Allport (1985), social psychology is
a scientific discipline that tries "to understand
and explain how thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors of individuals are affected by the
actual, imagined or implied presence of other
human beings" (p. 3).
Theories of Social
Psychology
1. Social exchange process
2. similarity attraction
3. Intergroup distinctiveness
4. Causal attribution process.
Social Psychology and
Social Identity
• • Recognizing the importance of the self and its relationship to
group identity, Henri Tajfel and John Turner (1986) developed
Social Identity Theory. This theory suggests that a person’s
self-concept is comprised of a personal identity as well as a
social identity.
• • Social identity, then, is primarily based on the comparisons
that people make between in-groups (groups to which a
person feels he or she belongs) and out-groups (groups to
which a person feels he or she does not belong).
 ASSUMPTIONS OF COMMUNICATION
ACCOMMODATION THEORY
• Speech and behavioral similarities and dissimilarities exist in
all conversations.
• The manner in which we perceive the speech and behaviors of
another will determine how we evaluate a conversation.
• Language and behaviors impart information about social
status and group belonging.
• Accommodation varies in its degree of appropriateness, and
norms guide the accommodation process.
Ways to Adapt
• • Convergence
• • Divergence
• • Overaccommodation
CONVERGENCE
• 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.
DIVERGENCE
• When there are no attempts to demonstrate
similarities between speakers. In other words,
two people speak to each other with no concern
about accommodating each other.
OVERACCOMMODATION
• A term attributed to people who, although
acting from good intentions, are perceived,
instead, as patronizing or demeaning.