Kind of.... Communication Theories (Communication Accommodation Theory)

I live in the world of variety, especially cultural diversity. I’ve been in USA, called a “melting pot” and “multicultural salad”, for about 3 years, living in different states and working different types of career. What appeal to me the most are the opportunities to meet people from different backgrounds – different nationalities, social statuses, business fields, and so forth. I’ve learned new things from those people every day and every time, even when I was on a bus.

Culture differences include:

• Nationality and ethnicity
• Cultural and social background
• Age and gender
• Education and social status
• Job or social role
• Current geographical position (China, USA, etc.)

To understand and to create and sustain harmony in the divergent society, communication is a pivotal key. A way to understand those is to learn about theories like Intercultural Communication theories. T-H-E-O-R-I-E-S… sound fun…, right?

Here is a list and explanations of some Intercultural Communication theories, summarized from online sources.

The Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)
CAT was developed by Howard Giles, a communication professor from University of California.

To avoid conflict and gain approval from another, one tends to shift his or her speaking to become more similar to another’s (convergence strategy). For example, one tries to speak formally when he or she has conversations with his or her friends in graduate school. In contrast, he or she speaks in lower level of language with his or her employees who are in lower social class to make them feel similarity, and give more cooperation.

On the other hand, one is likely to use divergence strategy to maintain his or her group identity or to index the different between them. For instance, one from a prestige family response with higher language level and more complicate context to another person from lower social level who tried to converge to him. It’s just like he is saying, “you are not belong to my group, don’t try”.

There are four components in CAT:

1)      Sociohistorical Context – Historical relations influent interaction between people. For example, people from Thailand and Lao are likely to converge their speaking to each other because the two countries have good relationship for long time.

2)     Accommodative Orientation – three factors under this component are (1) Intrapersonal factor (personal characteristics), (2) Intergroup factor (attitude and feeling toward the other group), and (3) Initial orientation (perceived potential and conflict).

3)     Immediate situation – such as (1) “sociopsychological states”, (2) “goals and addressee focus” (e.g. motivations and goals for the encounter), (3) “sociolinguistic strategies” (e.g. convergence or divergence), (4) “behavior and tactics” (e.g. topic, accent) and (5) “labeling and attributions”.