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Sociolinguistics
Tutor: Andrei Avram

Accommodation, audience design and speaker design

1 Accommodation
1.1 Accommodation theory
Developed within the framework of social psychology of language.
Accommodation / attunement: the conscious or unconscious process in which the
speaker attunes or adapts his/her attitude and linguistic behaviour to those of his/her
interlocutor (Giles et al. 1973; Giles and Smith 1979; Giles 2001; Giles and Fortman
2004).
Convergence: accommodation towards the speech of one’s interlocutor (Giles et al
1973; Giles and Smith 1979). Convergence emphasizes similarities between speech
styles, makes the speaker sound more like his/her interlocutor, reduces social distance
and tends to be positively evaluated (Giles et al. 1973; Giles and Smith 1979).
Divergence: accommodation away from the speech of one’s interlocutor (Giles et al.
1973). Divergence emphasizes differences between speech styles, makes the speaker
sound less like his/her interlocutor, increases social distance and tends to be
negatively evaluated (Giles et al. 1973).
Upward convergence: towards someone with more status or power (Holmes 2013).
Downward convergence: toward someone with less status or power (Holmes 2013).
Subjective convergence: the approximation of norms that the speaker erroneously
believes to be typical of the interlocutor; the speaker converges to the way he/she
perceives the interlocutor to be speaking (Meyerhoff 2006).
Subjective divergence: difference between how the speaker perceives he/she speaks
and how he/she really speaks, as shown by objective measurement (Meyerhoff 2006).
Objective convergence: objectively measured convergence (Meyerhoff 2006).
Objective divergence: objectively measured divergence (Meyerhoff 2006).

1.2 Quebec
Giles et al. (1973)
Examination of the reactions of English Canadians to requests made in English by
French Canadians
English Canadians responded more favourably to a request that apparently required
some effort on the part of the speaker than to a request made in fluent English.
The degree of convergence can play a role in the evaluation by the interlocutor.

1.3 Cardiff
Coupland (1984)
An assistant in a travel agency was recorded in conversation with her clients.
Variable: intervocalic (t).
Variants: [t] and [d].
The assistant’s level of intervocalic voicing converges on the customers’ level. [Figure
1]
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1.4 Speakers’ accounts

Speaker from the north-east of England, living in the south-east (Swann 2000)

(1) I don’t think I’ve lost my accent altogether but when I do go back home and
speak to my family I’m very much aware that I tend to slide across and speak
in a sort of softer Northumbrian accent which is that of my mother […]. I’ve
noticed in the local shops some of the staff have moved down from Newcastle,
and when I find I’m talking to them I slip very quickly back into a northern
accent and we joke about where we’ve come from, and it forms a common
bond very quickly.

2 Audience design
Bell (1984, 1991, 1997)
Audience design: intra-speaker variation arises because the speaker pays attention to
the addressee or to whoever might be listening or overhearing him/her (Bell 1984,
1997).

(2) Known Ratified Addressed

Addressee + + +
Auditor + + −
Overhearer + − −
Eavesdropper − − −

(3) Accommodation/Attunement hierarchy (Bell 1984, 1997):

addressee > auditor > overhearer > eavesdropper

Bell (1991)
Style shift of four radio announcers on two radio stations
Variable: intervocalic (t).
Variants: [t] and [d].
The newscasters consistently differ in their level of intervocalic voicing and
consistently shift on average 20% between National Radio (YA) and the local station
ZB. [Figure 2]

Bell (1984)
Style shift of one radio announcer on two radio stations
Variable: intervocalic (t).
Variants: [t] and [d].
Variable: consonant-cluster reduction.
Variants: CC and C.
Variable: determiner the.
Variants: the and ø.
Variable: not.
Variants: not and n’t.
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(4) a. National Radio (YA)

Last week the British Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher met the
Australiian Premier Mr Bob Hawke in Canberra […] Their next
meeting will not be for several months (Bell 1984).
b. Local radio station (ZB)
Las’ week British Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher met
Australian Premier Mr Bob Hawke in Canberra […] Their nex’
meeting won’t be for several months (Bell 1984).

The same newsreader on two radio stations consistently produces different speech
styles for each audience. [Figure 3]

4 Speaker design
Speaker design: term suggested by Meyerhoff (2006)
Speaker design: the speaker uses different speech styles to present himself/herself
differently according to who he/she is speaking to (Coupland 2001, 2007, 2011).

References
Bell, A. 1984. Language style as audience design. Language in Society 13 (2): 145-204.
Bell, A. 1991. Audience accommodation in the mass media. In H. Giles, N. Coupland and J. Coupland
(eds.), Contexts of Accommodation – Developments in Applied Sociolinguistics, 69-102.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bell, A. 1997. Language style as audience design. In N. Coupland and A. Jaworski (eds.),
Sociolinguistics. A Reader and Coursebook, 240-250. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Coupland, N. 1984. Accommodation at work: Some phonological data and their implications.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language 4-6: 49-70.
Coupland, N. 2001. Language, situation, and the relational self: Theorizing dialect-style in
sociolinguistics. In P. Eckert and J. R. Rickford (eds.), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation, 185-
210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coupland, N. 2007. Style, Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coupland, N. 2011. The sociolinguistics of style. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of
Sociolinguistics, 138-156. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Giles, H. 2001. Speech accommodation. In R. Mesthrie (ed.), Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics,
193-197. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Giles, H. and Fortman, J. 2004. Social psychology of language. In U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, K. J.
Mattheier, P. Trudgill (eds.), Sociolinguistics. Soziolinguistik. An International Handbook of the
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und Gesellschaft, vol. 1, 99-108. Berlin ∙ New York: de Gruyter.
Giles, H. and Smith, P. 1979. Accommodation theory: Optimal levels of convergence. In H. Giles and
R. St Clair (eds.), Language and Social Psychology, 45-65. Oxford: Blackwell.
Giles, H., Taylor, D. M. and Bourhis, R. Y. 1973. Towards a theory of interpersonal accommodation
through language: Some Canadian data. Language in Society 2 (2): 177-192.
Holmes, J. 2013. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, fourth edition. London and New York: Routledge.
Meyerhoff, M. 2006. Introducing Sociolinguistics. London and New York: Routledge.
Swann, J. 2000. Language choice and code switching. In R. Mesthrie, J. Swann, A. Deumert and W. L.
Leap, Introducing Sociolinguistics, 148-183. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.