ABSTRACT
In the field of sociolinguistics, accommodation is valued for its explanations and predictions of individual variation. As described below, second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have used accommodation to account for differences in learners’ language use with native speakers and how it accounts for some linguistic features of input. While empirical studies are relatively few in number, Tarone’s (2007) review includes accommodation among sociolinguistic theories of SLA. Beebe and Giles (1984) first present an overview
of Speech Accommodation Theory (SAT) and its applications to second language acquisition. Its key propositions include convergence and divergence, active strategies used by learners based on their assessment of the perceived relationship between their language and that of their interlocutors. When speakers like or identify with their speakers or have an instrumental purpose for speaking, their speech converges. They are likely to model their speech on that of their interlocutor, using similar linguistic features. Conversely, when speakers feel a lack of identification or a perceived threat to their language, they accentuate linguistic differences, or diverge from their interlocutors. In terms of SLA, the model suggests that those learners who perceive the new language as a threat to their first language would not seek opportunities to practice the second and would therefore not develop second language proficiency. Conversely, learners, who see the second language as complementary to their first would
achieve higher proficiency. Early SLA accommodation studies predicted learners’ convergence or divergence from target language forms usually based on factors such as the perceived ethnolinguistic vitality or relative status of the first language with respect to the target language. With additional developments, SAT gave way to
Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) to account for an expanded notion of accommodation and a greater number of features included in the model. Giles, Coupland and Coupland (1991) explain that CAT accounts for intergroup variables and language use in naturalistic settings. Zuengler’s (1991) review of CAT in SLA in the same volume discussed empirical studies and offered a grounded explanation for foreigner talk (FT), a form of input considered beneficial for SLA. CAT predicts that if a native speaker has a functional reason for interacting with a language learner, there would be greater amounts of converging FT. Someone who wished to highlight social or personal distinctions, would diverge from facilitative FT. In this way, CAT’s relevance for SLA expands beyond learners’ identifications to include contextual features of input and demonstrates that language acquisition can depend on complex relationships in the learning context as much as within the learner. SAT and CAT rely heavily on the idea of stra-
tegic language use based on perceived notions of interlocutors and language groups. Recent challenges argue that this identification of the “other” can be static or stereotypical given new models of personal and group identity affiliation within cultural studies. Ylanne-McEwen and Coupland (2000) review this critique and counter that CAT is a
multi-faceted perspective that recognizes language as both symbol of cultural identification and as the medium through which individuals negotiate their identities (p. 211). In their view CAT accommodates the full complexity of speakers in interaction.
