Communication Accommodation Theory

1. COMMUNICATION
ACCOMMODATION
THEORY
By
Vishnu Achutha Menon
Research Scholar
Department of Media and Communication
CUTN

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.