Essay Sample on Communication Accommodation Theory: Adapting to Fit In

Introduction

Imagine a conversation between individuals of various social dimensions, including social and occupational status, culture and ethnicity, gender, and age, among others. How do they interact with each other, and how do their different personal and social identities define the interaction? The Communication Accommodation Theory is about people wanting to show their positive characters to others. People tend to adapt to the lifestyle of the people close to them as they talk differently according to the different gestures that are accordingly used with diverse groups of people. This paper will analyze the Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) and use it to examine the movie Lawrence of Aribia and identify the connections that exist between the film and the theory including Lawrence's ability to adapt to the Arabian lifestyle and hold different positions in the cultures that are much different from his.

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Communication Accommodation Theory

In the effort to explain why and how people magnify and reduce their communicative differences, including the social differences associated with doing so, is what refers to the Communication Accommodation Theory. CAT has gone through many elaborations and refinements, but the major accommodative strategies entail the convergence towards or divergence from another. It provides a wide-ranging framework that helps to envisage and explicate the alterations that people have to make to generate, cut, and maintain social distance when collaborating (Gallois & Giles, 2015). With CAT, people get to explore how they accommodate their communication and the consequences and motivations for doing so. CAT addresses the issues associated with interpersonal communication and also connects it with the more significant intergroup stakes brought forth by a similar encounter.

Basic Concepts and Principles of CAT

There are a few basic principles associated with CAT. Firstly, when people interact, they use definite communication strategies, which are convergence and divergence, to show their attitudes towards the partners in the communication and their corresponding social groups. In this manner, social interaction brings about the balance between social inclusiveness needs and differentiation. Likewise, individuals have different expectations about the optimal accommodation levels based on the stereotypes about the prevailing situational and social norms (Fisk & Vaarala, 2017).

Also, communication is not only about exchanging facts and ideas but is also about accommodation. For instance, being able to shift from one dialect to another when communicating tells a lot about a person than the answer provided, as it shows that one has embraced many social ideals. Communication is influenced by the sociohistorical context where the interaction is taking place and by the features of the initial orientation of the participants and their immediate situation.

According to CAT, people also communicate to show their attitudes towards the other persons and are therefore a way of indicating the social distance level that exists between them. Accommodation is the constant changing of one's communication behavior to move closer or away from others. Convergence, on the other hand, is considered the historical basis of CAT (Heath, 2015). It is a strategy that involves the adaptation of communicative behaviors through various communication strategies that include linguistic, paralinguistic, and non-verbal features that make one more similar to the actions of the other. Divergence is a communication strategy that incorporates the accentuation of speech but does not display any linguistic differences between the parties. They also have different motives since convergence intends to gain the other's approval, while divergence aims to emphasize the distinctiveness that exists between the parties. However, divergence can be adopted to shape the feelings and attributions of the receiver.

Social Applications of CAT

Communication between linguistic groups and cultures is the most applied context for the theory. CAT was first developed through the study of linguistic markers and their interaction with cultural groups. It was used to explain intercultural relations that extend to the issues of language maintenance and shift, as well as bilingualism and creolization. A model of the theory examines the sociopsychological variables that influence the attitude of others towards learning the dominant language (Heath, 2015). Learning another person's communicative code can be regarded as convergence as individuals can associate the other language as an implied loss of the person's mode of communication. Learning a second language has some sociohistorical implications for the survival of a group.

CAT has also had significant contributions in intergenerational communication. According to D'Agostino and Bylund (2013), communication between older adults and the young people generally involves different internally differentiated cultural groups that have different beliefs and values about different language codes, as well as social and existing agendas. Besides, in intergenerational dialogues, older adults are found to make a lot of accommodations to the younger people and sometimes even underaccommodate them (D'Agostino & Bylund, 2013). Hence, accommodation depends on the parties of the communication and their relationship with each other.

Alternatively, younger persons tend to over-accommodate older adults and adjust too much for them (D'Agostino & Bylund, 2013). In communication between the younger people and older adults, the younger ones often adopt the basic grammatical phrase structures that have a low speech rate and also act overly caring and polite regardless of their personal needs and capacities. The most extreme form of this over-accommodative communication can be viewed as "baby talk" and is often incorporated when communicating with the elderly and individuals with mental or physical disabilities.

Men and women also communicate differently. Women are more cooperative and polite than men and frequently take the facilitator's role in a conversation (Parcha, 2014). Besides, the goals and strategies of women when having conversations is to establish an affiliation with the other party. Women, through expressing appreciation and attenuating criticisms, are more likely to moderate inequalities in power and status as well as emphasize solidarity. Men differ from women significantly since they are known to be more eager to control the conversation.

Unlike women, men use language to exchange information and establish status instead of developing social connections. Men talk more when in formal situations but less in intimate relationships, which is vice versa for women. Interestingly though, in same-sex and mixed-sex cases, men and women lack the same communicative behavior since they accommodate the style of communication to the gender of the interaction partner (Adams et al., 2018). Moreover, women easily put up than men since they have more concern and apprehension unlike males that have societal power.

Likewise, communication in organizations is also particularly interesting, especially with the strong situational asymmetries and norms in the status of the communicators. Accommodation, in most organizations, is central to the relationships with the clients and the general public. For instance, in the hospitality industry, a convergent communication style with the customers is crucial for their satisfaction. But for people like supervisors, the non-accommodative communications are over-accommodative for them as predicted by CAT. Hence, CAT is vital in understanding and studying functional interactions.

Communication is not only about face-to-face interactions, but it can also be mediated through different types of technology. The advances in technology are continually inventing new communication media such as teleconferencing and the internet, among others, which offer exciting features for communication and also allow accommodation tendencies (Adams et al., 2018). Accommodation through media is evident via cues like silence, long response periods, the nature of voice used to give a reply, among others (Parcha, 2014). Hence, CAT is also applied in media communications.

Lawrence of Aribia

Having gone through the Sinai Desert on foot, the main character, T.E. Lawrence, played by Peter O'Toole, arrives at the Suez Canal sanctuary with his servant boy. A man passed across the waterway only to slow down after seeing Lawrence and the boy too tired to stand and covered in sand. The movie Lawrence of Arabia is a story of a troubled star that is tormented by his internal conflicts. It can be best regarded as an adventure story since the screenplay does not give out anything new about the main character and does not offer any opinion about the main character and the motivation behind his actions. Anybody who does not know about the legend of Lawrence might be confused by the movie, especially from the beginning the way it starts with Lawrence's fatal motorcycle accident. The opening scene might seem irrelevant, but it is significant for the film.

Boll's screenplay and David Lean's touch amazingly brought out the life story of Lawrence through telling dialogue. The storyline is about Lawrence as a young officer in Cairo when the British Intelligence was watching the Arab Revolt. Lawrence is selected to observe the revolt, and he sets out to find the head of the uprising, which marked the beginning of his incredible adventures. He finds Prince Feisal and persuades him to lead his troops in a manner that tackles inter-tribal wars. Lawrence is later appointed to help the Arabs to attain independence but is captured and tortured by the Turks, leaving him broken, shaken, and disillusioned. But still, he leads the Arab forces to Damascus but ends up unwanted by the British army and the Arabs crumbling all his dreams in the desert sands.

Lean and Young brought out the endless torment and loneliness in the desert, ideally using artistic colors and musical scores as well as the artwork and costumes always seem right. Peter O'Toole strikingly carries out the role of Lawrence by skillfully handling his many moods. He displayed high authority, keen intelligence, veiled insolence, as well as independence, and courage, including the gradual understanding of the Arabs and how they live.

Communication Accommodation Theory and Lawrence of Aribia

The main character of Lawrence of Arabia displayed perfect communication and accommodation skills in the film. Thomas Edward Lawrence was an ordinary man but lived an extraordinary life. He learned to appreciate different cultures that he encountered in his lifetime and was readily accepted in whatever cultural setting that he was in. Lawrence achieved so much through the personal struggles that he went through but failed. The adjustments that Lawrence had to make to generate, lessen, and maintain social aloofness during the collaboration is many.

From the time of his childhood, as displayed by Lean, Lawrence was always cautious, knowing how to accommodate others around him, which makes him complicated in the eyes of many. Throughout his life, Lawrence went by many names, including King Dynamite and John Ross, which made it impossible for one to know who he was exactly or even if he knew himself. Lawrence embraced many social ideas and was able to shift from one dialect to another since he learned Arabic after taking a tour of Syria on foot. That was not all, and he learned many dessert skills that would enable him to survive the harsh realities that exist in the desert. Despite being an English man, Lawrence was fluent in Arabic and admired and understood them as well as had massive respect...