THE ACCOMMODATION

THEORY

SLA Sudeshna Dey 6/25/2017

HOWARD GILES

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

SLA Sudeshna Dey 6/25/2017

ACCOMMODATION THEORY -
INTRODUCTION

Was developed by Howard Giles in 1987

Gilesand Wiemann (1987) explained accommodation theory as
a theory that examines underlying motivations and
consequences of shifts in verbal behaviour
Theory attempts to explain -
o why people accommodate or adjust to another's speech
o the need to gain approval or maintain social identity with
whom they are speaking with
SLA Sudeshna Dey 6/25/2017
INTRODUCTION

Assumptions perceptions of anothers

speech help individuals to evaluate and
behave towards that person
AT Seeks to explain how a learners social
group influences the course of L2 acquisition
For Giles, the key idea is that of social
accommodation

SLA Sudeshna Dey 6/25/2017

GILES SUGGESTS

He suggests that when people interact with each other,

they either try to make the speech similar to that of their
addressee in order to
o Empathize social cohesiveness (a process of
convergence)
o Or to make it different in order to empathize their
social distinctiveness ( a process of divergence)

SLA Sudeshna Dey 6/25/2017

 Ithas been suggested that L2 acquisition involves
long-term convergence
That is, when social conditions are such that learners
are motivated to converge on native speaker norms
(i.e, speak like native speakers)
High level of proficiency is the result
Butwhen the conditions encourage learners to
maintain their own social in-group, less learning takes
place
Thus, the
SLA Sudeshna Dey
effect of social context affects language 6/25/2017
learning
 Speakers ( usually unconsciously) change their
pronunciation and even the grammatical complexity
of sentences they use to sound more like whomever
they are talking to
This accounts in part for why native speakers tend to
simplify their language when they are talking to an L2
learner who is not fluent,
and why L2 learners may acquire somewhat different
varieties of the target language when they have
different friends
SLA Sudeshna Dey 6/25/2017
IN-GROUP AND OUT-GROUP

According to Giles
In-group is the social interaction between the
learners social group that includes family as
well as people of the same race, culture,
gender or religion
Out-group is the target language community

SLA Sudeshna Dey 6/25/2017

TWO TYPES OF CHANGE

Giles (1979) distinguishes two types of change

which occur in the L2 speakers use of target
language
1. Upward convergence
2. Downward divergence

SLA Sudeshna Dey 6/25/2017

UPWARD CONVERGENCE
Convergence has been defined as a strategy whereby
individuals adapt to each others communicative
behaviours in terms of speech rate, pronunciation,
pause, smiling, gaze and so on
Convergence is largely based on attraction
Thegreater the attraction between communicators, the
more convergence happens
Attraction encompasses things like liking, charisma and
credibility
It occurs when a learner is positively motivated towards
the out-group
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DOWNWARD DIVERGENCE

Divergence was the term used to refer to the way in

which speakers empathize speech and non-verbal
differences between themselves and others
Itoccurs when the learner is not positively motivated
towards the out-group; their intention is to maintain their
distinctiveness
Itis different from convergence in that there are no
attempts to display similarities in gestures, posture,
speech rate, etc., between speakers
There is no effort made to reduce social distance or to
make
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CONCLUSION

Inlanguage use the occurrence of upward

convergence or downward divergence can fluctuate
(change continually) as a result of the L2 speakers
ongoing assessment of oneself, vis--vis his own group
and the out-group community
Inlanguage acquisition, progress takes place when
the overall predisposition of the learner is towards
upward convergence
Conversely, fossilization occurs when the overall
predisposition of the learner is towards downward
divergence
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