Communication Accommodation Theory

I'm curious to find out if any of our SPICE19
students learn to navigate German greetings

without feeling clumsy or awkward. 

I've updated this post with a new reading for CAT (see bullet-points, below), as well as a video from Dr. Giles explaining the theory. 

Houston, TX -- Our first week discussion will have us talking Communication Accommodation Theory, first introduced to the field of human communication by noted scholar Dr. Howard "Howie" Giles of the University of California - Santa Barbara. In general, the theory attempts to explain how individuals come to adapt their communicative styles to one another as they spend more time with each other.

While the theory is not specifically or uniquely restricted to the study of intercultural communication, it is not hard to see how the theory might help explain variance in both our initial and continued interactions with folks from another culture; after all, one way we can understand cultural differences is in terms of communicative behavioral differences (both at the verbal and non-verbal level). A particularly interesting phenomenon associated with this is that of code-switching, which tends to really get at folks who are bi- or multi-lingual (or really, code-mixing as they tend to 'mesh' different linguistic and para-linguistic styles together). As students of communication, we'll be on the lookout for these behaviors and we'll make note as we see it.

Where might this stuff matter? I'll say that it's heavily studied in the context of organizational communication - particularly as we see an increasingly global corporate environment. But even in simple interviews and interactions, we see evidence of CAT as well as influences on perceived social status.

For that first class (we're meeting Monday, 17 June at 09:00 (that's 9am), over at Double B [walking directions]) we're going to talk about some of these concepts. To prepare for class however, I would encourage you to read the following articles.

• UPDATED:  Giles, H., & Ogay, T (2007). Communication accommodation theory. In B. B. Whaley & W. Samter (Eds.), Explaining communication: Contemporary theories and exemplars (pp. 293-310). Mahway, NJ: LEA
• Gregory, S. W., & Webster, S. (1996). A nonverbal signal in voices of interview partners effectively predicts communication accommodation and social status perceptions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1231-1240. 

Otherwise, read this article and the links contained in the short entry up above and we'll talk CAT on Monday! (NOTE: CAT might explain why I format my dates differently when working with SPICE).