ABSTRACT
THE first publications concerning “speech accommodation theory” (SAT) emerged in 1973. Giles (1973) not only demonstrated the phenomenon of interpersonal accent convergence in an interview situation, but also introduced his “accent mobility” model in the context of a critique of some aspects of the Labovian (1966) paradigm (see also Bell, 1984). This was a blueprint for subsequent formulations addressing a greater diversity of speech levels (Giles & Powesland, 1975). To this end, and in that same year, Giles, Taylor, and Bourhis (1973) published a paper that confirmed empirically some fundamental ideas inherent in what subsequently was to be labeled SAT. In a bilingual context, they found that the more effort in convergence a speaker was perceived to have made, the more favorably that person was evaluated and the more listeners would converge back in turn. Moreover, a plethora of convergent strategies was discovered even in what for some would be described as a socially sterile laboratory setting. Since then, empirical and theoretical developments and consequences have been somewhat profuse, and particularly so in the 1980s (for example, Ball, Giles, & Hewstone, 1985; Giles, 1984). Hence, the aim of this state-of-the-art chapter is to present a concise overview of SAT achievements to date, to renovate some of its propositional components in the light of recent thinking, and to lay down some priorities for future research.
