Explaining Communication Adjustment: Communication Accommodation Theory and Its Utility in Intercultural Communication

The purpose of this article is to detail the properties of core communication theories, particularly communication accommodation theory (CAT), thus demonstrating its utility in explaining intercultural communication (Giles, 1973, 2016; Giles et al., 1991). A key position of this manuscript is that CAT, with its unique intercultural origin and substantive interpersonal and intergroup features, intersects with prominent theories in intercultural communication research (Gallois et al., 1995; Giles et al., 1991; Zhang & Giles, 2018). As such, part one of this article summarizes the growth and expansion of CAT as a robust theory of communication. In part two, we identify CAT’s intersections with prominent intercultural communication frameworks in relational and intergroup processes. Future opportunities for converging and building new frameworks, particularly focusing on expectation violations theory (EVT; Burgoon, 2016) and CAT, are explained in the final section. Overall, the paper coalesces CAT’s development phases and pertinent communication theorizing across intercultural research in communication to accomplish these goals.