ACCOMMODATION THEORY

• What does accommodation theory explain?

  Why speakers either emphasise or minimise the social distance between each other through their language choices
• what is convergence?

  when two speakers make their language more similar to each other
• what is upward convergence?

  one or both participants are moving towards standard English
• what is downward convergence?

  one or both participants are moving away from standard English, using more colloquial forms
• what is divergence?

  when two speakers make their language more different to each other, can be upward or downward