Communication Accommodation Theory: The Three Applications Of Communication Accommodation Theory

The acceptable distance for a conversation between adults is greatly affected by the cultural background of the participants

3.1 – Explain how individuals from a different backgrounds may use communication methods in a different way

Different social, professional and cultural contexts may affect relationships and the way people communicate due to of a lack of understanding or knowledge of one another’s background and culture. This could be through their race, religion, ethnicity or where they come from. Each one of these can have similar or very different ways to communicate. For example

Explain how people from different backgrounds may use and/ or interpret communication methods in different ways

Consider a black person, or any other minority, who enters a room for an interview in hopes of earning a position within an aerospace company at an entry level position. Sitting across from him or her could be three white employees: possibly one from human resources, another was the area supervisor, and lastly the teams’ lead in the area looking to hire. Consider the applicant a black man who grew up in Southern Georgia; however, he then sat at a table in Norther California seeking employment. Understanding the difference in culture and region, the panel of interviewers diverge the conversational tone to accommodate the applicant. According to Ayoko, Härtel, and Callan (2002), “Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) examines the

Explain how people from different backgrounds may use and/or interpret communication methods in different ways

3.1 Explain how people from different backgrounds may use and/or interpret communication methods in different ways

People from different background use and interpret communication method in different ways. Ethnicity and background influence how we use communication and our understanding to it. Many factors such as culture, age, gender dialect can determined our interaction with others because English may not be their language, culture can play a major role on how we communicate with people. In some culture for instance, it is not acceptable to give direct eye contact to an elderly person when they are communicating with you. However, in some culture not giving eye contact will be term as being rude. Also, different people from different background

Communication is an ongoing process in which individuals exchange messages whose meanings are influenced by the history of the relationship and the experiences of the participants. (Adler, p.384) Communication depends on relationships between the people who are communicating, and on common basics between them. Problems in communications between people may arise due to differences in cultures, perceptions, values, and expectations from life.

In this paper, I will use CAT (Communication Accommodation Theory) to explain how convergence, divergence, and intergroup contact are illustrated within the film American History X.

Communities are all about groups of individuals who share something in common. This makes going on the internet seem like an odd way to find more communities, form new ones, or strengthen pre-existing ones. The internet however is full of communities. Communities can be based upon religion, location, ethnicity, an interest, or a personal matter. The internet itself is “a global distributed data communications network” (Kirmayer, Raikhel, & Rahimi, 2013, p. 166). This is what makes the internet so full of communities because communication is the key to putting multiple individuals with commonalities into communication, which is the basis of any community. Online communities differ from communities that exists off the web in a couple of

Theory explains how individual act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things. The meaning comes

Throughout the semester, we have studied numerous communication theories. Their purpose is to help understand exactly what happens when we interact with others. We might not necessarily agree with all of the theories, but the idea is to develop tools to evaluate situations we may encounter. Often, when the theories are explained in the readings or lecture, it is beneficial to apply the concepts to a "real life" situation. Using this approach, I will use a situation that many of us have faced, or will face, and analyze it according to a particular communication theory.

Intentionally or intuitively, we constantly use convergence and divergence in our daily communication routine. While the process itself is automatic; the manner of not doing either does not exist, because one of the two is always being chosen. Convergence is the process of adapting ones speech style to match others they want to identify and divergence is the use of linguistic mannerisms that emphasizes a person’s differences from others. A person would be able to understand these two concepts through personal examples by comparing and contrasting the differences in each term, discussing what aspects of these communicative techniques were conscious and which were

When communicators exhibit associative behaviors, they are utilizing verbal and nonverbal tactics that adapt to their conversational partner. Higher social status or power and commonalities between the individuals may explain why they are willing to do so. In attempt to demonstrate associative behavior, these individuals will partake in accommodation. According to the Communication Accommodation Theory, the interactants converge either upward or downward, unimodal or multimodal, or symmetrical or asymmetrical in order to adapt to the conversational setting (Zhang & Imamura, 2017). For instance, adults would speak slowly and use simple vocabulary when talking with children. In A Class Divided, the teacher would converge downward for her third-grade students to understand the concepts.