The Communication Accommodation Theory Through Convergence, Divergence, Social Identity, And Initial Orientation

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

ASSIGNMENT: Achieving competence as an interpersonal communicator in a diverse society is necessary to your personal and professional success. One way to enhance our understanding of interpersonal communication as a relationship-building activity is to engage in first hand dialogue with people from cultures other than your own. This assignment gives you the opportunity to engage in the dual perspective – honoring the perspective of the person with whom you are communicating as well as honoring your own perspective. You are also able to contrast your worldview with the perspective of someone with a different life experience than your

Communication involves more than exchanging words between people. Gestures, postures, facial expressions and even eye contacts are important during communication. Both verbal and nonverbal cues are important during communication and can help a person understand the speaker or listener’s emotions, attitudes or status. Understanding the existence of various cultures is necessary since different cultures have varying ways of communication (Lustig & Koester, 2012). Therefore, a communication style that is perceived as bad by a culture may be good in another culture. Besides, characteristics that may be essential for a particular culture may be quite irrelevant for another. In line with this dissimilarity, individuals need to adapt carefully and understand communication preferences and desires among cultures.

The first point in my theory is that you can better your skills as an interpersonal communicator by better understanding your own culture. DeVito states that there are. “several major cultural distinctions that are crucial for more effective communication” they are: individualism or collectivism, high or low context, high or low power distance, masculinity or femininity, high or low ambiguity tolerance, long or short term orientation, and indulgent or (p. 34). To be able to understand your or anyone else’s culture you must be able to understand the ways that these things affect communication. Once you understand the ways that you are oriented in these seven categories due to enculturation you can understand how you communicate and become a more effective

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

Unconsciously, we all speak different languages; we categorize the way we speak by the environment and people at which we are speaking too. Whenever a character enters an unfamiliar environment, they experiment with language to find themselves and understand reality. For immigrants, language is a means to retain one’s identity; however, as they become more assimilated in their new communities their language no longer reflects that of their identity but of their new cultural surroundings. When an immigrant, immigrates to a new country they become marginalized, they’re alienated from common cultural practices, social ritual, and scripted behavior. It’s not without intercultural communication and negotiation

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.

Communication affects the development of our personal identity in several ways. One way being that the comments we receive daily, whether it be good or bad, plays a part on how we view ourselves. The things that we say to one another builds the perception that we have of ourselves. For example, if we were called smart for majority of our childhood, then we would most likely view ourself as an intelligent person. Also, our intrapersonal communication affects the development of our personal identity. Depending on how we speak to ourselves, we establish a nice self identity, or a negative one.

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

In the world of communication, there are many theories which describe different ways people communicate. According to Doctor Thomas Hanitzsch, an associate professor of communication at the University of Munich in Germany, “Communication Theory is an international forum publishing high quality, original research into the theoretical development of communication from across a wide array of disciplines” (“Communication Theory”). A specific communication theory that will be highlighted is the Face-Negotiation theory developed by Stella Ting-Toomey. Simply stated, Dr. Ting-Toomey suggests that conflict is a consequence of identity management on an individual and cultural level, and occurs when an individual or group’s face is threatened.

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

Communication is a crucial aspect in people’s everyday life. Everything from word choice to personal perception can influence the interactant’s behaviors and styles of communication. Kim’s Contextual Theory of Interethnic Communication depicts the many layers and facets that attribute to the communication between two people belonging to different identities or groups. While there are four layers to Kim’s theory, this paper will focus on the behavioral aspect. Kim’s theory will be analyzed and explained through the lens of associative and dissociative behaviors.