Communication accommodation competence: The nature and nurture of accommodative resources across the lifespan

Pitts, Margaret J.; Harwood, Jake

doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2014.10.002

Cited by 39 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Such “discourse attuning” (Coupland :24) has evaluative aspects as there may be a mismatch between producer intentions and receiver interpretations, resulting in perceptions of overaccommodation (e.g., patronizing the interlocutor) or underaccommodation (e.g., dismissing the needs of the interlocutor). Pitts and Harwood (:89) argue that, in addition to attitudinal and relational dimensions, communicative accommodation needs to be understood as an individual competence that “is a developmental phenomenon built on the accumulation of accommodation resources and repertoires over the lifespan.” Together the relational and developmental perspectives on communicative accommodation raise interesting issues concerning transience in interactional relations; for instance, how do accommodative processes fare and how are they evaluated in more transient conditions?…”

Section: Theoretical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociolinguistic Economy in Contexts of Transience and Change in Danish Multinational Companies

Millar

2017

J Linguistic Anthropol

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Adopting a language ideological perspective, this article explores corporate sociolinguistic economies and the values given to languages and communicative competences within them. The focus is on how values are attributed to language choice and accommodation practices, and the impact of conditions of transience and change on these values. Using interview data from three Danish-owned multinationals, questions of language management, language exclusion and inclusion, accommodative competences, and instrumentality are explored. It is shown that issues of scale, global to local, as well as numbers, affect values within sociolinguistic economies as do tensions between communicative efficiency and fair access to knowledge. It is argued that conditions of flux favor the instrumental value of English, which is perceived as both a stable resource and a stabilizing force, but in local contexts, other languages, such as Danish, provide alternative and valued resources. Transience can be a disruptive factor, which becomes part of managerial decisions concerning linguistic exclusion and inclusion. Foreign languages, other than English, have situated value and tend to be linked to more long-term prospects or to more durable relations of varying frequencies of contact. [transience, Danish multinational companies, sociolinguistic economy, language choice, communicative accommodation]

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Section: Theoretical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociolinguistic Economy in Contexts of Transience and Change in Danish Multinational Companies

Millar

2017

J Linguistic Anthropol

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“…To accomplish their goals in context, people adapt and adjust their communication (Pitts & Harwood, ). However, these adjustments are not always experienced as appropriate or successful by their recipients; instead, they may be experienced as over‐ or undershooting recipients' desired levels of adjustment (i.e., as over‐ or underaccommodative , respectively; Coupland, Coupland, Giles, & Henwood, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Effects of Accumulated Underaccommodation on Perceptions of Underaccommodative Communication and Speakers

Gasiorek

Dragojević

2017

Hum Commun Res

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This study examined the effects of repeated instances of underaccommodation (i.e., insufficiently adjusted communication) on people's perceptions and evaluations of communication and speakers. Participants (N = 179) completed a series of three map‐based tasks that required them to follow directions that contained insufficient information. Consistent with hypotheses, as underaccommodation accumulated across tasks, participants inferred less positive motives for the speaker's communication, and inferences about motive for each task contributed directly and indirectly to overall evaluations of both the speaker and their communication. These results indicate that accumulated underaccommodation is consequential, and underscore the theoretical importance of motive attributions to predicting reactions to underaccommodation.

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“…Reasoning from a CAT's perspective (Gaisorek et al 2015;Pitts and Harwood 2015), a speaker's strong intention to enhance comprehension during formal presentations, for example, could explain that other research found a larger effect of formality on complexity or flow of speech because they varied settings (e.g. environments) rather than social distance between the speakers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of social distance on speech behavior: Formality variation in casual speech

Köppen

Ernestus

Mulken

2019

Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory

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An important dimension of linguistic variation is formality. This study investigates the role of social distance between interlocutors. Twenty-five native Dutch speakers retold eight short films to confederates, who acted either formally or informally. Speakers were familiarized with the informal confederates, whereas the formal confederates remained strangers. Results show that the two types of interlocutors elicited different versions of the same stories. Formal interlocutors (i.e. large social distance) elicited lower articulation rates, and more nouns and prepositions, both indicators of explicit information. Speakers addressing the informal interlocutors, to whom social distance was small, however, provided more explicit information with an involved character (i.e. adjectives with subjective meanings). They also used the word and more often as a gap filler or as a way to keep the floor. Furthermore, a small social distance elicited more laughter, interjections, first-person pronouns and direct speech, which are all indicators of involvement, empathy and subjectivity.

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Communication accommodation competence: The nature and nurture of accommodative resources across the lifespan

Cited by 39 publications

References 28 publications

The Sociolinguistic Economy in Contexts of Transience and Change in Danish Multinational Companies

The Sociolinguistic Economy in Contexts of Transience and Change in Danish Multinational Companies

The Effects of Accumulated Underaccommodation on Perceptions of Underaccommodative Communication and Speakers

The influence of social distance on speech behavior: Formality variation in casual speech

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