New directions for, and panaceas arising from, Communication Accommodation Theory

Giles, H., Markowitz, D. M., & David E. Clementson (2025). New directions for, and panaceas arising from, Communication Accommodation Theory. Peter Lang. ISBN: 9781636677989 https://doi.org/10.3726/b21641

Summary: Communication accommodation theory (CAT) explains and predicts when, how, and why different people engage in conversational adjustments with others (or not), as well as recipients’ responses to them. CAT has been studied with many methods across numerous languages, cultures, groups, disciplines, and contexts as well as with non-human species. A 2023 journal issue of Language Sciences commemorated the theory’s 50th anniversary. Yet since, a plethora of studies and theoretical refinements have exploded onto the scene. Herein, these include sojourning, AI, safety in industries, policing crowd protests, metacognition, and biological underpinnings of CAT, underscoring the timeliness of this volume. With new vistas, this volume enhances CAT’s status as, arguably, the most robust framework for understanding interpersonal and intergroup adjustments in communication across new technologies.