Communication Accommodation Theory

Communication accommodation theory (CAT) is a theory of communication developed by Howard Giles. It argues that, "When people interact they adjust their speech, their vocal patterns and their gestures, to accommodate to others." It explores the various reasons why individuals emphasize or minimize the social differences between themselves and their interlocutors through verbal and nonverbal communication. This theory is concerned with the links between language, context, and identity. It focuses on both the intergroup and interpersonal factors that lead to accommodation, as well as the ways that power, macro and micro-context concerns affect communication behaviors. This theory describes two main accommodation processes. "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. Sometimes when individuals try to engage in convergence they can also end up over-accommodating, and despite their good intentions their convergence can be seen as condescending.

The communication accommodation theory was developed by Howard Giles, professor of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It evolved from the speech accommodation theory (SAT), but can be traced back to Giles' accent mobility model of 1973. The speech accommodation theory was developed to demonstrate the value of social psychological concepts to understanding the dynamics of speech. It sought to explain "... the motivations underlying certain shifts in people's speech styles during social encounters and some of the social consequences arising from them."Particularly, it focused on the cognitive and affective processes underlying individuals' convergence and divergence through speech. The communication accommodation theory has broadened this theory to include not only speech but also the "non-verbal and discursive dimensions of social interaction". Thus, it now encompasses other aspects of communication. In addition CAT has moved in a more interdisciplinary direction than the previous speech accommodation theory. It now also covers a wider range of phenomena.

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 argues that a person's self-concept comprises a personal identity and a social identity, and that this social identity is based in comparisons people make between in-groups (groups they belong to) and out-groups (groups they do not belong to). According to social identity theory, people strive to maintain a positive social identity by either joining groups where they feel more comfortable or making a more positive experience of belonging to the groups they already belong to. 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. Four main socio-psychological theories: Similarity-attraction

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