1. Communication
Accommodation
Theory

2. What is C A T?
“when people interact they adjust their speech,
their vocal patterns and their gestures, to
accommodate to others.”
The trajectory of the
anticipated sales
insurgence will juxtapose
with the….

3. Who uses C A T?
YOU
!
You!
you!
YOU!
YOU!
YOU!
you!
you!
you
You!
You!

4. Meet Mr. Howard Giles…
Not to brag, but I was the driving force
behind Communication Accommodation
Theory. I’m a professor of psychology
and linguistics in the Department of
Communication at UC Santa Barbara. I
developed CAT from my research on
speech accommodation theory (SAT) and
my accent mobility model.

5. Who really cares…?
CAT is present in every single
communication interaction.
Even when you’re not paying attention, you are
participating in convergence!
Because of its simplicity, it is a basic building
block of many other communication theories.
It looks like someone may be a
little sicky wicky today…
Are you talking down to me
doctor?

6. I Object!(No you don’t, you’re just purposely causing divergence…)
Communication Accommodation Theory is too simple
to explain the complexities of human communication!
What happens if people both converge and diverge
in conversations, are there consequences to the
speaker? What about the listener?
Does race and ethnicity affect accommodation?
Critics are saying:

7. Converging…everyone’s doing it!
The biggest users of
convergence are people just
like us! 18-25 year olds
whose primary means of
communication is text
messaging.
You can see an example of
CAT just by looking at your
text messages. If someone
uses emojis all the time, are
you more likely to add emojis
to your text messages?