ABSTRACT
Overaccommodation is a language and communication strategy that is considered to be rather typical of young peoples’ communication with elders, and one which seems to have generated a considerable amount of research attention. Overaccommodation may be defined as the overplaying of a particular language or communication style relative to the needs, wishes, or desires of the listener (Coupland, Coupland & Giles, 1991; Ryan et al., 1986). Overaccommodation is further defined by Coupland et al. (1988) as a miscommunicative process wherein at least one participant perceives a speaker to go beyond a sociolinguistic style judged necessary for attuned talk. Often researchers use the terms overaccommodation and patronization as if they are interchangeable concepts, but there is danger in this. Recently, Williams and Giles (1998) defined patronizing talk as talk that is ideationally simpler, slower, and more childlike in intonation (for a review, see Ryan, Hummert, & Boich, 1995), and importantly, is attributed as patronizing by the recipient (Ytsma & Giles, 1997). This recent definition reflects the subjective attributional element inherent in the term patronization. For the most part, this chapter uses the term overaccommodation except when discussing research wherein researchers themselves used the term patronization.
