Publications

Publication details [#16214]

Jones, Elizabeth, Cynthia Gallois, Victor J. Callan and Michelle Barker. 1999. Strategies of accommodation: Development of a coding system for conversational interaction. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18 (2) : 123–152.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
SAGE Publications
ISBN
0261-927X

Annotation

This study describes a coding system developed to operationalize the sociolinguistic strategies proposed by communication accommodation theory (CAT) in an academic context. Fifty interactions between two students (of Australian or Chinese ethnic background) or a student and faculty member were videotaped. A turn- and episode-based coding system was developed, focusing on verbal and nonverbal behavior. The development of this system is described in detail, before results are presented. Results indicated that status was the main influence on choice of strategies, particularly the extent and type of discourse management and interpersonal control. Participants' sex and ethnicity also played a role: Male participants made more use of interpretability (largely questions), whereas female participants used discourse management to develop a shared perspective. The results make clear that there is no automatic correspondence between behaviors and the strategies they constitute, and they point to the appropriateness of conceptualizing behavior and strategies separately in CAT.