Communication Accommodation Theory: Chapter 31
Predicting which route a person will take is difficult, but the additive presence of what five factors increases the odds that a communicator will see the conversation as an intergroup encounter?
1. Collectivistic cultural context, 2. Distressing history of interaction, 3. Stereotypes, 4. Norms for treatment of groups, 5. High group-solidarity / high group-dependence
Besides self-handicapping, what other communication strategies are considered divergence?
1. Maintenance, 2. Overaccommodation
What are the features of elderly talk that make the speaker's age salient for the listener, and leave a negative impression?
1. Talk about age, 2. Talk about health, 3. Don't understand the world today, 4. Patronizing (you kids don't know the meaning of hard work), 5. Painful self-disclosure, 6. Difficulty hearing, 7. Mental confusion
Critique
CAT's structure and the underlying terminology are not always represented consistently in texts and propositions. CAT has become very complex, so that the theory as a whole probably cannot be tested at one time.
Initial orientation
Communicators' predisposition to focus on either their individual identity of group identity during a conversation
What are the two strategic forms of communication that diverse people use when they interact?
Convergence and divergence. Giles sees both types of behavior as accommodation because they each involve constant movement toward or away from others through a change in communicative behavior
Overaccommodation
Demeaning or patronizing talk; excessive concern paid to vocal clarity or amplification, message simplification, or repetition. Often characterized as "baby talk" and can frustrate the elderly, thus leading to a perception that they are irritable or grumpy. May be well intended, but has the effect of making the recipient feel worse.
Norms
Expectations about behavior that members of a community feel should (or should not) occur in particular situations.
Gains and losses of convergence
Facilitates better comprehension and understanding but could offend other in-group members because they may feel that converging toward an out-group is diverging from them and the one who accommodates may also feel a sense of inauthenticity
Main principle of speech accommodation theory
Giles claimed that when two people from different ethnic or cultural groups interact, they tend to accommodate each other in the way they speak in order to gain the other's approval
5. High group solidarity / high group-dependence
Giles predicts that when a person has a strong identification with a group and has a high-dependence on that group for relational warmth and a sense of worth, that person would have an initial intergroup orientation
What theorist created speech accommodation theory?
Howard Giles in 1973
2. Distressing history of interaction
If previous interactions were uncomfortable, competitive, or hostile, both interactants will tend to ascribe that outcome to the other person's social identity (men are like that). If the previous time together was positive, the result is often ascribed to the individual rather than to a group or class to which he or she belongs (By the end I felt good knowing that not all older people hate the younger generation)
4. Norms for treatment of groups
Norms can affect whether a member of one group regards a person from another group as an individual or as "one of them." The "respect your elders" rule may cause young adults to show deference to to an elderly person, but biting their tongue and not talking back could build up resentment toward a group that they may join someday
Type of theory and tradition it follows
Objective theory. Socio-psychological theory
Objective vs. Subjective Accommodation
Objective: a speaker's accent rate, pitch, and length of pauses that leans towards the recipient. Subjective: how the recipient judges the communication. Giles notes that "one does not converge toward (or diverge from) the actual speech of the recipient, but toward (or from) one's stereotype about the recipient's speech
Maintenance
Persisting in your original communication style regardless of the communication behavior of the other; similar to divergence; underaccommodation. The original speech accommodation theory defined maintenance as a strategy distinct from convergence or divergence.
What did communication accommodation theory begin as?
Speech accommodation theory in 1973
During intergenerational encounters, CAT researchers discovered what about divergence and convergence?
That divergence is the norm and convergence the exception, especially when the two aren't members of the same family.
Gains and losses of divergence
The interpersonal tension that is created by divergence or maintenance can certainly block the formation of intergroup or intercultural relationships and understanding. But the upside for the communicator is the reaffirmed social identity and solidarity that comes from enacting a divergent strategy. It's accommodation to the in-group rather than members of the out-group
3. Stereotypes
The more specific and negative the images that people have of an out-group, the more likely they are to think of the other in terms of social identity and then resort to divergent communication. This is a big factor in intergenerational communication. Elderly stereotype "youth today" as spoiled
1. Collectivistic cultural context
The we-centered focus of collectivism emphasizes similarity and mutual concern within the culture - oriented toward social identity. Their communication toward out-group members is often divergent. The I-centered focus of individualistic cultures valorizes the individual actor - oriented toward individual identity.
Divergence
a communication strategy of accentuating the differences between you and another person. In interethnic encounters, you might insist on using a language or dialect with which the other is uncomfortable. In terms of speech style, you could diverge by employing a thicker accent, adopting a rate of speaking distinct from that used by the other person, or speaking in either a monotone or with exaggerated animation. Linguistically, divergence could be signaled by a deliberate substitution of words. All of these communication moves are examples of counter-accommodation: direct ways of maximizing the differences between two speakers
Convergence
a strategy of adapting your communication behavior in such a way as to become similar to another person. Ways to do this: (1) adjust your speaking style to approximate that of your conversational partner, (2) talk in a way that makes it easier for the listener to grasp what you're saying, (3) use discourse management - sensitive selection of topics to discuss
Because there's a societal constraint or norm that those with less power ought to
accommodate to the communication practices of those with higher status, upward convergers don't get as much credit as when status is relatively equal. Still, this moderate reaction is much more favorable than the response toward a low-power person who adopts a divergent strategy.
CAT can be applied to
any intercultural or intergroup situation where the differences between people are apparent and significant.
They define old or elderly communicators as those who
are 65 and older
Giles and his colleagues define young communicators as those who
are teenagers up to adults in their 40s or even 50s
Young people typically characterize the elderly as
closed-minded, out of touch, angry, complaining, and negatively stereotyping youth
In the last two decades, CAT researchers have shown consistent interest in exploring
communication accommodation in an intergenerational context
In 1987, Giles changed the name of the theory to
communication accommodation theory (CAT) and offered it as "a theory of intercultural communication that actually attends to communication"
CAT theorists have always regarded _____ as the main motivation for convergence
desire for social approval
Social identity
group memberships and social categories that we use to define who we are. Tajfel and Turner suggested that we often communicate not as individual actors, but as representatives of groups that help define who we are.
Giles draws from attribution theory to cast light on
how we'll interpret our conversational partners' convergent or divergent behavior. In two different versions of attribution theory, Fritz Heider and Harold Kelley suggested that we attribute an internal disposition to the behavior we see another enact. Our default assumption is that people who do thinks like that are like that. Yet three mitigating factors may come into play: (1) the other's ability, (2) external constraints, and (3) the effort expended
The early research of Giles and his colleagues centered on
interethnic communication, often between two bilingual groups in the same country.
No single factor determines a person's initial orientation, but if all five factors line up in the direction of public identity, it's almost certain that a communicator will approach a conversation with an
intergroup mindset. This is the case in most intergenerational interactions. Giles notes that a person may change orientations during a conversation
Tajfel and Turner pictured a motivational continuum with
personal identity on one end of the scale and social identity at the other pole. As long as both parties consider themselves and their conversational partner to be unencumbered (not having any burden), autonomous individuals acting for themselves, the theorists believed the desire for approval --> convergence --> positive response sequence is what takes place. But when group identity is salient, the motivation sequence is: need for distinctiveness (social identity) --> divergence --> negative response. Giles and colleagues believe this alternative sequence occurs quite frequently.
The elderly often increase the social distance through a process of
self-handicapping: a defensive, face-saving strategy that uses age as a reason for not performing well
Giles specifically focused on the nonverbal adjustments of
speech rate, accent, and pauses
Giles and colleagues continue to believe what he wrote about accommodation in his first monograph -
that listeners regard convergence as positive and divergence as negative. Converging speakers are viewed as more competent, attractive, warm, and cooperative. Divergence is often seen by its recipients as insulting, impolite, or down-right hostile. But what's ultimately important is not how the communicator converged or diverged, but how the other perceived the communicator's behavior
Accommodation
the constant movement toward or away from others by changing your communicative behavior
Attribution
the perceptual process by which we observe what people do and then try to figure out their intent or disposition
As long as you're both acting as unique individuals who are shaping their own personal identities and relationships, representing convergence as a
two-step, cause-and-effect relationship seems justified. Desire for approval (personal identity) ---> Convergence ---> Positive response. Two problems: (1) this sequence can't explain why we frequently communicate in a divergent way, and (2) the causal chain doesn't take into account the fact that we often act as a representative of a group. Giles and other CAT theorists draw upon social identity theory to solve the problem.
Social identity theory
work of Tajfel and Turner. The idea that our social identity will greatly affect our communication. According to them, whenever any of our associations comes to mind in talking with others, our motivation will be to reinforce and defend our ties to those groups. And when these groups are salient (important) at the start of an interaction with someone different, CAT claims that our communication will diverge away from our partner's speech rather than converge toward it.
