Language & Communication,Vol. 8, No. 314, pp. 175-182, 1988.

Printed in Great Britain.

THE COMMUNICATIVE
NIKOLAS

0271-5309/88 $3.00 + .oO

Pergamon Press plc

INTRODUCTION
CONTEXTS OF ACCOMMODATION

COUPLAND

and HOWARD

GILES

Several of the key concerns that, some 15 years ago, underlay the development of a theory
of interpersonal linguistic accommodation (cf. Giles, 1973; Giles et al., 1973) are still
operative today. Most importantly, the need to understand style-shifting and code-choice
in context still seems to be afforded inadequate priority in contemporary sociohnguistics,
as witnessed for example in the recent review of sociolinguistic aims and methods by Milroy
(1987). Milroy accurately reflects an enduring concern in sociolinguistics for survey designs,
tracing dialect-variation between social groups, employing a methodology inspired by a
search for vernacular styles of language, in interviews or more natural settings. According
to these priorities, situational variation in speech can appear to feature only as noise,
interfering with the presentation of a vernacular base-line style which is supposedly the
real object of sociolinguistic inquiry. It is perhaps significant that Milroys influential
treatment restricts stylistic concerns to a final chapter. Though that chapter offers a highly
valuable and self-contained review of recent research, we are inevitably led to feel that
style is still peripheral to sociolinguistic concerns.
It was in part to redress this bias towards static sociolinguistic surveying that Giles
early work under the heading of accommodation was begun. Giles and Powesland (1975),
for example, argued that explanatory initiatives in sociolinguistics needed to accept that
style- or code-choice can be strategic and motivated, rather than a simple correlate of
sociostructural variables such as region, class or social situation. Explanations would lie
in formal study of the diverse socio-psychological processes-goals, recognised constraints,
attributions and evaluations-that
involve speakers and listeners in on-going interaction.
The most crucial of these initial observations was that linguistic choices are not made in
isolation, but relationally, as for example choices vis a vis interlocutors own choices.
Accordingly, Speech Accommodation
Theory (SAT) has evolved as an increasingly
sophisticated model of the dynamics of interpersonal (and subsequently, intergroup)
influence in talk.
We do not intend to offer a detailed historical review of SATs conceptual and empirical
development in this prologue. This task has recently been accomplished elsewhere (Giles
et al., 1987). Also, many of the contributors to this Special Double Issue have themselves
been assiduous in referencing previous work and in aligning their own specific insights
and developments to the existing frameworks. Furthermore, SAT has recently featured
in quite diverse literatures, and has been invoked in so many settings that a truly
comprehensive appraisal is beyond the scope of this essay. As evidence of the scope of
SATs recent employment in applied settings, we can point to the interpretation of empirical
Correspondence
relating to this paper should be addressed to: Dr Nikolas Coupland,
Language Studies, University of Wales College of Cardiff, Colum Drive, Cardiff,
175

Centre for Applied

CFl 3EU.

English

NIKOLAS

176

COUPLAND

and HOWARD

GILES

findings and communicative

tactics from domains including,
compliance-gaining
(Buller
and Aune, 1988), courtroom interactions
(Aronsson et al., 1987), diplomacy (Gudykunst,
1986a), and radio news reporting (Bell, 1984). SAT has also been integral to the development
of theory in related areas, such as intergroup communication
(Gudykunst,
1986b), second
language acquisition (Giles and Byrne, 1982; Gallois et al., in press), language maintenance
and shift (Giles and Johnson,
1987), dialect change (Trudgill, 1986), and the analysis of
miscommunication
(Coupland et al., 1988; Coupland et al., forthcoming).
Over the years,
SAT processes have been demonstrated
at many linguistic and communicative
levels, from
dialect and speech-rate phenomena to non-verbal signalling and discursive styles. The theory
has also been robust enough to embrace many, sometimes radical revisions, extensions
and elaborations,
some of which are overviewed in Table 1.
Table

1. Selective theoretical
accommodation

developments
theory

of speech

Key processes and

phenomena
introduced/
encompassed

Published

Attributions
Uncertainty
reduction
Social structure
Boundaries
Sociolinguistic
optima
Identities
Non-verbal
vocal
Subjectivity
Situational
norms
Self-presentation
Discourse attuning

Simard et al. (1976)

Giles (1977)
Giles et al. (1977)
Giles (1979)
Giles and Smith (1979)
Bourhis et al. (1979)
Street (1982)
Thakerar et al. (1982)
Bourhis (1985)
Giles et al. (1987)
Coupland
et al. (1988)

source

In the remainder

of this introductory
essay, therefore, we intend to focus on the general
model, and offer, in passing, something of a rationale for
revising conventional
terminology
towards the label Communication
Accommodation
Theory (CAT) that some researchers (after Giles et al., 1987) are now employing. We shall
argue that accommodation
theory has now overtaken its early life as a set of propositions
predicting listeners social evaluations of particular speech-strategies
such as convergence,
maintenance
and divergence (though it can usefully function at this level), and can now
be viewed as a generalised model of situated communicative
interaction.
In fact, we shall
introduce the papers in this collection as demonstrating
that this is indeed so.

nature of the accommodation

Although a case has previously been made for the relative merits of the accommodation
framework over other competing interpersonal
communication
models (Street and Giles,
1982), we are by no means arguing hegemony
for SAT. Taking a recent overview
formulation
of accommodation
processes as a departure-point
(Fig. 1, from Coupland et
al., 1988), we can see that several of the fundamental
concepts invoked under the
accommodation
rubric are by no means unique to SAT. For example, one of the primary
interactional
goals specified in the figure is promote social approval.
Accommodation
theory holds as a central prediction that this goal will be fulfilled, under specified contextual
conditions and recognising several caveats, through speech convergence, a strategy whereby
speech styles or codes come to be reduced.
dissimilarities
between
interlocutors

INTRODUCTION

Fig.

1. A generalised

model of SAT processes.

Correspondingly,
speech divergence, the emphasizing or increasing of dissimilarities
between styles, is predicted to give rise to lowered social approval. [A full statement, in
propositional terms, of the theorys principal predictions is to be found in Giles et al. (1987).]
Notions of social approval of course surface, variously labelled, in diverse treatments
of sociolinguistic solidarity processes. Brown and Levinson (1987), for example, invoke
the notion of positive face, which they define as the desire to have ones wants wanted,
as a perennial goal underlying politeness strategies in face-to-face interaction. Indeed,
Brown and Levinsons emphasis on communicative strategies, mediating intention and
speech, itself aligns well with the fundamental design of the accommodation model, as
in Fig. 1. Future theoretical work could well explore the degree of detailed fit between
the strategies Brown and Levinson taxonomise as positive politeness and the dimensions
of accommodative discourse identified in the Coupland et al. (1988) paper.
Again, the priority that the SAT model gives to addressee focus, which Fig. 1 shows
to provide the basis for particular linguistic choices, is reminiscent of Bells (1984)
observation that sociolinguistic style in general is best seen as variable configurations of
audience design, a concept the author himself aligns with accommodation theory at a
general level. Bell conceives of styles as being selected on the basis of dimensions of
audience ranked immediate-to-remote in relation to a speaker. Pengs (1974) work on
communicative distance theory may be cited as a further parallel conceptualisation of
the focal involvement of addressees in the determination of style- and code-choices, as
can that of Le Page (1968; Le Page and Tabouret-Keller, 1985) and Bickley (1982). The
voluminous research traditions on communicative role-taking (e.g. Burleson, 1985; Clark
and Schaefer, 1987; Graumann and Hermann, 1988; Krauss, 1987; Kraut and Higgins,

178

NIKOLAS

COUPLAND

and HOWARD

GILES

1984; OKeefe and Delia, 1985) and again motor mimicry (e.g. Bavelas et al., 1988) invoke
overlapping concerns. Indeed, tenor has been developed as an explanatory concept within
British traditions
of register analysis (cf. Halliday,
1978; Gregory and Carroll, 1978) to
focus precisely on those dimensions of style-choice that are related to addressee variables.
As is true of work in all these traditions,
SAT gives explanatory
priority to recipiency
considerations
in its account of style- or code-choice,
though it also seeks to specify
particular respects in which the addressees characteristics
come to influence encoding. In
Fig. 1, attend to others productive performance
is represented, though several alternative
foci have recently been modelled (see below). Again, SAT attempts to integrate addresseeconsiderations
with a host of other variables in the socio-psychological
environment
of
the speaker/hearer
dyad.
The complex of socio-psychological
processes SAT recognises in recipiency to talk
(perceptual,
labelling,
attributional
and evaluative,
in Fig. 1) in general terms echoes
Gumperzs (1982a, b) work on conversational
inferencing.
Gumperz approach is also a
rare sociolinguistic
initiative in following through descriptive research, via recognising
inferential
processes, into considering
social consequences
of interaction,
in terms of
confirming
social stereotypes and promoting
intergroup
tensions. Although SATs early
claim that there is a basic set to accommodate
(Giles and Powesland,
1975) might suggest
the theory essentially models sociolinguistic
solidarity and communicative
cooperation,
in
fact miscommunication
is an increasingly focal concern of the accommodation
model (cf.
references given above; also Coupland et al., in press). SAT explicitly recognises the likely
impact of interpersonal
communicative
exchanges upon local and broader contextual
factors. These include normative
expectations
of and pressures on interactional
styles,
sociolinguistic
stereotypes, developing relationships,
etc., and upon a range of individual
states, self-concepts,
identities, subjective wellbeing, and so on (refer again to Fig. 1).
The models cyclical operation, contemplating
the complex interplay and mutual influences
to talk, communicator-characteristics
and contexts, therefore carries with it possibilities
of social and individual change. Here we can conceive particularities
of dialect-change
in
the individual
or the community,
changing sociolinguistic
norms, ideological shifts, and
processes of intrapersonal
development
or decline.
It is the fact that the accommodation
model explicitly integrates sociological,
sociopsychological
and sociolinguistic
processes-talk
embedded in its contextual antecedents
and consequences-that
best justifies its status as a communicative theory. The behavioural
data may well be speech phenomena
in face-to-face interaction-as
in the treatments,
in the present Issue, of accent/dialect
variation
(Prince; Yaeger-Dror),
lexical diversity
(Bradac et al.), formality (Levin and Lin; Scotton) interruptions,
pauses, utterance-length,
back-channelling
and laughter (Bilous and Krauss)-but
they are located in a complex system
of individual
and group dynamics
operating
pervasively
throughout
communication
processes. Also, recent theoretical work of our own (Coupland et al., 1988) has suggested
that taking account of a broader spread of possible addressee orientations
will lead to
a far wider range of sociolinguistic
strategies
being invoked
under the rubric of
accommodation
than the conventional
categories of convergence,
maintenance
and
divergence. Correspondingly,
we are proposing that the model should cease to be concerned
only with speech phenomena even at the behavioural level of sociolinguistical
encoding.
We have argued that communicative
accommodation
can usefully be construed as the full
range of interpersonal
addressee-oriented
strategies in discourse whereby speakers attune
their talk to some characteristics
of the hearer. Convergence,
maintenance
and divergence,

INTRODUCTION

179

which can be labelled approximation strategies, are well documented as signifiers of

interpersonal association/dissociation, but a host of other dimensions of talk can, in context,
also signify these precise qualities of an interaction. A convergent orientation is thus
predictably signalled through rendering talk adequately (and not over-) explicit and clear
(comprehensibility
strategies); through selecting and continuing topics, managing
sequential options, respecting face-wants and so on optimally (discourse management
strategies); and allowing appropriate role-discretion to an interlocutor (interpersonal
control strategies).
However grossly the figure we have been referring to characterises its principal
components, it clearly invites multi-disciplinary input from across the range of language
and communication sciences. Hence, one important phase in the development of SAT was
the appearance, in the mid-1980s, of a special issue of the International Journal of the
Sociology of Language devoted to the dynamics of speech accommodation (Giles, 1984).
Interdisciplinary input was a key feature of that collection, as scholars from an array of
methodological traditions explored very different aspects of the model. Some 1984 papers
allowed SAT to demonstrate in particular its sociolinguistic (in the narrower sense of the
term) facility, off-setting criticisms that were then current that SATs descriptive linguistic
base was limited (e.g. Bell, 1984). The sociolinguistic momentum of the 1984 collection
is maintained in the present Issue, which generally reflects the rapid growth of SAT-related
research across the disciplines. The papers which follow examine a rich variety of
communicative phenomena and processes in conversation and in the media, again emanating
from diverse cultures and methodological traditions. We are treated to rare longitudinal
case-studies across individual careers and the lifespans of social groups, observational
analyses and self-report data from bars, marketplaces, TV chat-shows and congressional
hearings, and these alongside elegant and complex factorial experimental designs in
controlled experimentation.
We would select two clusters of issues that are particularly highlighted. First, the papers
further demonstrate the ubiquity and complexity of accommodative processes in action
both outside the laboratory (Levin and Lin) and inside it (Bilous and Krauss), in the East
as well as the West (van den Berg), and in song (Prince; Yaeger-Dror) as well as in talk.
For instance, a convergent orientation is encoded variously when examining different
linguistic features of the same speakers conversing (Bilous and Krauss), can be overaccommodating even when purporting explicitly to avoid this (Atkinson and Coupland),
and can be multidirectional in fulfilling a variety of societal and familial needs (van den
Berg). Moreover, convergences can not only satisfy individual desires to accommodate
others linguistic habits and social prestige (Levin and Lin), but may also be directed towards
changing the very nature of the social relationship operating between interlocutors (Scotton).
The social meanings of approximating target others, physically present as individuals or
prototypically envisaged as a group (Gallois and Callan), can also vary depending on where
the accommodative perimeters are perceived to be (Bradac, Mulac and House), at what
point the sequence occurs interactionally, and under what sociocultural conditions (Genesee
and Bourhis). In sum, the deceptively simple notion of convergence continues to be
documented in these contributions, though in ways which innovatively explore complexities
of motivation, form, consequence and ideological implication.
Second, we see this Issue as helping to clarify the emergent notion (cf. Trudgill, 1986)
that interpersonal accommodative shifts are core mechanisms for understanding different
long-term language/dialect changes of heterogeneous sub-sections of particular communities

180

NLKOLAS COUPLAND

and HOWARD

GILES

(van den Berg). We see how macro-societal

changes cannot only influence social attitudes
to transitory convergent shifts in interaction
(Genesee and Bourhis), but can also mediate
longer-lasting,
seemingly divergent shifts across generations
(Yaeger-Dror).
In addition,
it will be argued that the sociolinguistic
models for long-term convergent
shifts are not
inevitably the presumed real targets themselves (for example, towards the elite patterns
of the host culture),
since other related social groups (Prince) and/or
the believed
characteristics
of these targets (Gallois and Callan) are on occasions accessed instead.
This brief essay cannot hope to capture the rich array of data, methods and ideas, within
the SAT framework and independently
of it, that the collected articles present. Certainly,
for future work in accommodation
(and cf. Giles et al., in press), many issues raised here
are tantalizing,
dynamic constructs worthy of future theoretical consideration;
some of
these are intergroup
contact and vitality (Yaeger-Dror),
self-categorization
(Gallois and
Callan), markedness and interactional
power (Scotton), social identification
(van den Berg),
institutional
prescriptions (Atkinson and Coupland), and fluctuating sociocultural contexts
(Genesee and Bourhis).
Relatedly, more inter-, rather than multi-disciplinary,
scholarship
seems an obvious
priority for the future. In other words, within the same research programme,
we need the
closer, longitudinal
linguistic detail of Prince and Yaeger-Dror alongside the more global
dependent
measures of Bilous and Krauss and Levin and Lin, with sociological
and
ideological parameters made explicit simultaneously,
as in van den Bergs and Atkinson
and Couplands
papers. All these should, ideally, continue to be grounded in naturalistic
observations such as those of Scotton from the media, but also from desultory conversation
and other more specifically contextualised
natural sources. These will complement
the
sophisticated experimental paradigms of the kind exemplified here by Bradac ef al., Gallois
and Callan, and Genesee and Bourhis, and should be examined across a variety of carefullychosen and theoretically-defined social and cultural contexts (cf. Giles and Franklyn-Stokes,
in press). Arguably,
CAT is unique as a theoretical sociolinguistic
statement in already
having experience of such social, psychological and linguistic ecclecticism, and is well placed
to expand its integrative
role.
The present Issue of course raises many detailed questions for theoretical and empirical
scrutiny. For instance, what is the precise relationship
between momentary
interpersonal
accommodative
shifts and longer-term idiolectal, dialectal or language-shifts?
What further
mechanisms
and processes, if any, need to be given theoretical recognition
before longterm accommodation
can be modelled (presumably
in some elaboration
of the generalised
model in Fig. l)? What criteria can we securely identify determining
which speakers, or
prototypes,
are selected, consciously
or not, as target sociolinguistic
models, when and
how? How might we arrive at a sufficiently detailed account of the interlocking motivations
underlying different situated attuning strategies? How can we determine whether a particular
shift is normative or accommodative,
and have we an adequate socia/ perspective on its
complex consequences
for our networks? What legitimately are the boundaries
of SATs
remit, and at what points is it useful or appropriate
to give ground to other models and
related (more emotional)
constructs,
such as empathy and caring, even accounting
and
deception?
Can the spiralling growth of empirical findings plausibly be integrated into
predictive propositional
statements of the sort SAT-theorists
have worked towards in the
past (but which we have not attempted in this context), replete with contextual
caveats
and special considerations?
Should
we continue
to strive to disentangle
linear

INTRODUCTION

accommodative stages from negotiated discourse when accommodation

perspective, a core constituent of that reality?

181

is, from another

A plethora of further questions, which are not directly addressed in the following papers,
could be raised here-and some perhaps more fitting to others theoretical and ideological
tastes. Nonetheless, we offer this Special Issue as a testament to the enormous descriptive
and explanatory potential of SAT, even in its current form, for our understanding of a
vast range of language and communication phenomena and processes. The contributions
that follow have a common base in using and extending the core concepts of accommodation
theory, but they look outwards from this core to an impressive array of social issues, social
contexts and relational processes. It is an academic theory that has provided the cornerstone for the Issue itself, but it is in the illumination of the social world of communicative
interchange that all our primary interests lie.

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