COMMUNICATION ACCOMODATION THEORY

Communication Accomodation Theory (CAT) is theory founded by a Welsh psychologist named Howard Giles. He claimed that people coming from a different ethnic or cultural groups tend to speak in a way that they accommodate each other in order to gain mutual approval (Griffin, 2009, p. 387).

“Communication Accomodation Theory provides a wide ranging framework aimed at predicting and explaining many of the adjustments that individuals make to create, maintain, or decrease social distance in interaction. It explores the different ways in which we accommodate our communication, our motivations for doing so and the consequences” (Whaley & Samter, 2009, p. 325). Basically, the theory explains how our way of communicating with another person affect the way we speak so that the other person will be able to understand what’s been communicated to them and so both are clearly on the same line.

According to Whaley and Samter (2009), communications is used to indicate individuals attitudes toward each other and this becomes a barometer of the level of social distance between them. The constant movement toward and away from others, by changing one’s communicative behaviour is referred to as accommodation (Whaley & Samter, 2009, p. 326). There are two strategic forms that people use in accommodating their communication: convergence and divergence (Griffin, 2009, p. 388).

Griffin (2009) defined convergence as “a strategy by which you adapt your communication behaviour in such a way as to become more similar to another person” (p. 388). Whereas divergence means “a communication strategy of accentuating the differences between yourself and another person” (p. 389).

For example:

Harold and Kumar is a good example to explain the convergence strategy. It is obvious from the image that they are both of different races where Harold is a Korean while Kumar is an Indian. However to achieve mutual understanding both opt to speak in English.

The image above is an example of divergence strategy. The girl is avoiding eye contact and looking away from the camera.

References:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                               New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Whaley, B. B., & Samter, W. (2009). Explaining communication:                             contemporary theories and exemplars. Retrieved from    http://books.google.com.bn/books?id=58elr6iOOxsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=explaining+communication+-+contemporary+theories+and+exemplers&hl=ms&sa=X&ei=vhOLT-v4CsTZrQe9rpnTCw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=explaining%20communication%20-%20contemporary%20theories%20and%20exemplers&f=false