Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) proposes that people change their speech patterns, vocal characteristics, and gestures when communicating with others in order to be better understood. Developed by Howard Giles in 1973, CAT suggests that speakers may converge their speech towards another person's patterns or diverge from them. Convergence can occur downward from higher to lower social classes, upward from lower to higher classes, or mutually as both speakers adjust towards each other. The goal of accommodation is effective communication across differences in language, age, or other barriers.

1. ACCOMMODATION THEORY
Irsalina Rachma Viramdani
Khusnen Khoirin Nada

2. The Founder
Howard Giles
Professor of linguistics and
psychology at the University
of California, Santa Barbara.
Giles developed the theory
in 1973

3. Accommodation Theory
Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)
is the way the speaker adjusting speech, vocal
patterns, and/or gestures to accommodate
the interlocutor in a certain communication.

4. Purpose
People change the way they speak to be
better understand others to accommodate to
their communication needs

5. Accommodation
Theory
Speech
Convergence
Downward
Convergence
Upward
Convergence
Mutual
Convergence
Speech
Divergence

6. Speech Convergence
• Speech convergence is the way the speakers
move their speech closer toward each other
• There is a tendency for people to become
more alike in terms of linguistic, prosodic or
non-verbal features, including pronunciation,
utterance length, pauses, speech rates, vocal
intensities, as well as facial expressions and
the "intimacy of their self-disclosures"

7. Downward Convergence
Downward convergence occurs when people
in upper class (such as people with an RP)
toning down their way of speech to speak to
people in a lower-class

8. Upward Convergence
Upward convergence occurs when lower-class
people trying to eliminate some of the
stronger regional feature of their speech when
they speak to the upper class

9. Mutual Convergence
Mutual convergence occurs when the speaker
and the interlocutor adjust their speech
toward each other

10. Speech Divergence
Speech divergence is the ways in which both
speakers accentuate their verbal and non-
verbal differences

11. Conclusion
The point of Communication Accommodation
Theory is to be able to communicate with
others affectively. Without it, problems with
language barriers, age barriers, or
understanding people clearly can be a result
of failed communication accommodation