New Directions For, and Panaceas Arising From, Communication Accommodation Theory

Table Of Contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Chapter One: CAT-aloguing the Past, Present, and Future (Howard Giles, David E. Clementson, and David M. Markowitz)
• Revisiting Past Editions of CAT Work and its Stage Structure
• The Diversity of Prior Books and Journal Special Issues
• Staging CAT
• Prospects for Future Interdisciplinary Collaborations and Developments for CAT
• CAT and New Computational Frontiers
• Anticipating a Future New CAT Stage #8: Interbrain Synchrony
• The Chapters to Follow
• Coda
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Chapter Two: Accommodating Families (Quinten S. Bernhold)
• Overview of CAT
• Topical Domains of CAT Research
• Age Prejudice
• Relational Well-Being
• Psychological Well-Being
• Future CAT Research Guided by Other Theories
• Attachment Theory
• Family Communication Patterns Theory
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Chapter Three: Sojourning with CAT (Charles W. Choi)
• Accommodative Behaviors
• The Intergroup Nature of Intercultural Encounters
• CAT in the Acculturation Process
• Group Vitality
• Intercultural and Accommodation Competence
• Expanding CAT’s Reach: The Role of Ethnorelativism
• A Model for Accommodative Competence
• Future Directions
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Chapter Four: Encounters Between Police and Crowds: New Insights from CAT (Edward R. Maguire)
• Background: The Social Identity Approach
• The Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM)
• Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)
• New Insights from CAT
• Accounting for Pre-Event Intergroup Dynamics
• Reconceptualizing Communication to Include Both Verbal and Nonverbal Behaviors
• Reconceptualizing Facilitation as Accommodation
• Final Thoughts
• Bibliography
• Chapter Five: Processes and Explanatory Mechanisms of Intergroup Accommodation (Yan Bing Zhang, Gabrielle A. Byrd, and Gretchen Montgomery-Vestecka)
• Communication Adjustment: Forms, Evaluations, and Motives
• Communication Adjustment
• Motive of Adjustment: Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Dimensions
• Intergroup Communication Accommodation: Processes and Mechanisms
• Stereotypes and Their Manifestations in the Communication Accommodation Processes
• Identity Accommodation
• CAT’s Alignment and Contributions to Intergroup Contact Theory
• CAT’s Contributions to ICT: Language Use and Communication Adjustment as Intergroup Contact
• CAT’s Contributions to ICT: Mediating and Moderating Mechanisms and Beyond
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Chapter Six: Expanding CAT Beyond Health to the Aviation Industry (Melanie Barlow, Bernadette Watson, Liz Jones, Chris Williams, and Timothy Mavin)
• Receiver Mindset Framework
• Communication in Aviation
• Recommendations
• Conclusion
• Note
• Bibliography
• Chapter Seven: Humanizing AI Agents using CAT (Monica A. Riordan and Roger J. Kreuz)
• How Conversational Agents Work
• Communication Accommodation Theory
• Interacting with Nonhuman Agents
• Social Actors and the Uncanny Valley
• The Humanness of Conversational Agents
• Social Relationships with Conversational Agents
• Questions for Future Research
• Rethinking “Communication”
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Chapter Eight: From Genes to Gestures: Uncovering Biological Threads in Communication Accommodation (Anuraj Dhillon, Amanda Denes, and Meredith Turner)
• Overview of Hormones Relevant to Accommodation
• Testosterone
• Oxytocin
• Cortisol
• Biological Threads of CAT
• Hormones and Accommodation
• Hormones and Inferred Motives
• Hormones and Conversational Outcomes
• Hormones and Relational Outcomes
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Chapter Nine: Managing Comprehension: Metacognition and Understanding in Communication Accommodation (Jessica Gasiorek and Marko Dragojevic)
• Research on the Cognitive Function of Communication Accommodation
• Cognitive Motives
• Responses to Comprehension-Related Accommodation
• How Accommodation Affects Comprehension
• Accommodation and Metacognition
• Theoretical Implications and Future Directions
• Conclusions
• Note
• Bibliography
• Chapter Ten: What’s Next? A Comparison with Fellow Theories and Future Developments (Andrew J. Guydish)
• Theoretical Approaches to Communication Adjustment
• Audience Design
• The Interactive Alignment Model
• Interaction Adaptation
• The Collaborative Theory of Language Use
• Areas of Future Study
• Conscious or Nonconscious
• The Role of Consciousness across Modalities
• Initial Orientation Development
• Initial Orientation across Modalities
• Outcomes Associated with Accommodation and Nonaccommodation
• Outcomes across Modalities
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Chapter Eleven: CAT-apulting into the Future (Jake Harwood)
• A Needs-Based Approach to Accommodation
• Additional Paths Forward
• Perceiving Convergence and Divergence Relative to Baselines
• Conscious and Unconscious CAT Behavior
• Distinguishing Accommodation from Communication
• Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Notes on Contributors
• Index

New Directions For, and Panaceas
Arising From, Communication
Accommodation Theory

Howard Giles, David M. Markowitz,
David E. Clementson (eds.)

New York · Berlin · Bruxelles · Chennai · Lausanne · Oxford

Library of Congress Control Number: 2025006696

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover image

© Laura Gomes Clementson

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

ISSN 1529-2436

ISBN 978-1-63667-798-9 (PB)

ISBN 978-1-63667-831-3 (HB)

ISBN 978-1-63667-797-2 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-1-63667-835-1 (ePUB)

DOI 10.3726/b21641

© 2025 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne, Switzerland

Published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, USA

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All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

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  Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Chapter One: CAT-aloguing the Past, Present, and Future

Howard Giles, David E. Clementson, and David M. Markowitz

Chapter Two: Accommodating Families

Quinten S. Bernhold

Chapter Three: Sojourning with CAT

Charles W. Choi

Chapter Four: Encounters Between Police and Crowds: New Insights from CAT

Edward R. Maguire

Chapter Five: Processes and Explanatory Mechanisms of Intergroup Accommodation

Yan Bing Zhang, Gabrielle A. Byrd, and Gretchen Montgomery-Vestecka

Chapter Six: Expanding CAT Beyond Health to the Aviation Industry

Melanie Barlow, Bernadette Watson, Liz Jones, Chris Williams, and Timothy Mavin

Chapter Seven: Humanizing AI Agents using CAT

Monica A. Riordan and Roger J. Kreuz

Chapter Eight: From Genes to Gestures: Uncovering Biological Threads in Communication Accommodation

Anuraj Dhillon, Amanda Denes, and Meredith Turner

Chapter Nine: Managing Comprehension: Metacognition and Understanding in Communication Accommodation

Jessica Gasiorek and Marko Dragojevic

Chapter Ten: What’s Next? A Comparison with Fellow Theories and Future Developments

Andrew J. Guydish

Chapter Eleven: CAT-apulting into the Future

Jake Harwood

Notes on Contributors

Index

  List of Figures

Figure 3.1. Accommodative competence model between sojourner and host national in cross-cultural communication

Figure 4.1. Publications containing the phrase “Communication Accommodation Theory” by year published, 1987–2023

Figure 6.1. Model for reprioritization of communication informed by CAT and RMF

Figure 11.1. Attuning to needs

Figure 11.2. Potential expansion of needs-based accommodation approaches

Figure 11.3. Understanding convergence

  List of Tables

Table 1.1. The scale of prior CAT compendia

Table 1.2. Stages of CAT

Table 2.1. Topical domains of CAT research

Table 6.1. Conversation 1—Ineffective safety negotiation

CHAPTER ONE CAT-aloguing the Past, Present, and Future HOWARD GILES, DAVID E. CLEMENTSON, AND DAVID M. MARKOWITZ

Conversations are a miracle of convergence.

— Burchfield et al. (2023, p. 1)

The way people accommodate to others has been studied conceptually using an array of complementary (if not largely synonymous) constructs (e.g., entrainment, synchrony, interactive alignment, mimicry) and by means of an array of contrastive models (e.g., van de Pol et al., 2023). Among the latter is communication accommodation theory (CAT, see Guydish, this volume), the subject matter of this book, which has also spawned a diversity of other satellite models.¹ One of the aims of this opening chapter is to represent CAT’s remarkable growth across the disciplines (see Lorson et al., 2024; Meyerhoff, 2023) as one of the most theoretically robust and empirically rich interpersonal and intergroup theories² of the way people adapt to, as well as differentiate themselves from, others.

The theory was introduced in 1973—initially, as speech accommodation theory—which sought to understand (as well as predict) how, when, and why speakers would modify their language varieties and conversational styles depending on the particular interlocutors they encountered. Phenomena under the umbrella of CAT (see Coupland et al., 1988) include convergence, divergence, (speech) complementarity, reluctant accommodation, and various discourse management strategies (e.g., approximation, interpretability) that have been examined within and across successive conversations with the same participants (e.g., Gasiorek & Dragojevic, 2019; Guydish & Fox Tree, 2021).³ As the opening epigram from Burfield et al. (2023) states, interactions hinge on convergence, which may be considered a “miracle,” but is even more so when the other accommodative and nonaccommodative strategies are embraced. Importantly, CAT also focused on the many forms, antecedents, and social consequences of nonaccommodation which Gasiorek (2016, p. 85) referred to as “the dark side of CAT.”⁴ Correspondingly, the theory was developed to account for recipients’ attributions and evaluations of, as well as their emotional and behavioral responses to, these accommodative and nonaccommodative moves, including code-switching between languages (Villaabrille et al., 2024). However, it should be recognized that accommodation and nonaccommodation are not mutually exclusive but can be encoded at the same time during and between conversations (Giles & Powesland, 1975; see also Petrou & Dragojevic, 2024). This is likely so given speakers can be fulfilling various social goals and functions simultaneously (see Wilson, 2019; also, Gasiorek & Dragojevic, this volume).