Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) investigates how individuals adjust their speech patterns to either converge with or diverge from their interlocutors, influenced by factors such as age, gender, race, and cultural background.
Psychological factors
A learner may learn L2 within such social
conditions that are not suitable for SLA, however
he/she may not learn under favorable social condition.
There are 4 affective variables:
Motivation
It involves the learner's reason for acquiring the target language. It could be:
Integrative Motivation: He values and admires the target language
Instrumental Motivation: He wants to learn TL for some utilitarian reasons.
Ego-permeability
Learners native likeability in L2 develops "language ego". In the early stages of development, language ego boundaries are permeable, but later they become fixed and rigid.
Culture shook
It can be defined as anxiety resulting from the confusion a learner encounters while entering a new culture.
Language shock
Learner's attempt to speak a second language with the fear that they will appear comic. Adults feel ridicule whereas children are not afraid of criticism.
Social Factors
Two social groups with different
languages are in a contact situation:
1. Second Language Learning Group
2. Target Language Group
There are 8 social variables:
Length of residence in the
target language area.
If the 2LL group remains for a long time in the TL area, it is likely to develop more widespread contacts with the TL group.
Attitude.
Positive attitude towards each other's group facilitates learning.
Congruence.
If both cultures are similar, socia contact between the two groups will be more likely to happen spontaneously.
Size.
It means that if the 2LL group is large, the intragroup contact will be more frequent than intergroup contact.
Cohesiveness.
It means that if the 2LL group is cohesive, it will tend
to remain separate from the TL group.
Enclosure.
It has to do with the degree to which the 2LL group
and the TL group share the same social constructs (schools, clubs, etc) If the two groups share these constructs enclosure is said to be low and contact between the two groups is improved.
Integration pattern:
Assimilation, Preservation, Adaptation.
Assimilation: The 2LL group gives up its own values and life-style adopting the values, lifestyle and views of TL group promoting acquisition of the target language and improving contact between both groups.
Preservation: The 2LL maintains its own lifestyle, values and refuses to adapt the TL group values and views creating social distance between both of them and increasing the possibility of not acquiring the target language.
Adaptation: The 2LL group adopts the lifestyle and views of the TL group, yet maintains its own values and lifestyle.
Social Dominance
It explains how political, cultural, technological and economical
differences between the 2LL group and TL group influence language acquistion process.
Sometimes the target language tends to be not learned by TL group if the 2LL group is superior in all the areas mentioned before.
COMMUNICATION ACCOMODATION THEORY
CAT's elements are:
Convergence:when you make your speech similar to who you’re talking with.
Divergence: It emphasizes differences in speech and nonverbal behavior between communicators.
CAT (Communication Accomodation Theory) can be applied to communication taking place between people who belong to different cultural or demographic groups based on:
AGE
GENDER
RACE OR NATIONALITY
SEXUAL ORIENTATION, RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION
POLITICAL AFFILIATION
ETC.
It was supported by Dr. Howard Giles a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Definition. It is based on the social
psychology of acculturation ( the process by which a human being acquires the culture of a particular society from infancy) It means it mantain that certain certain social and psychological variables cluster into a single variable, acculturation.
Learner's role focuses on acquiring the target language
to the degree they acculturate to the target language group.
A L2 acquisition model designed by John H. Schumann in 1978
