Essay On Communication Accommodation Theory

There are several important factors which must be considered as we attempt to achieve effective communication with others. We must first recognize the goal we are trying to achieve with the communication. Second, we need to recognize who we are and how we, as individuals, communicate with others. And lastly, we need to understand how our audience is going to actually receive or perceive the communication we have presented. Although all three of these factors are different, they all are intertwined and affect one another in all aspects of our daily communication. In De Vito’s book Human Communication: The Basic Course, he defines communication accommodation theory as a, “Theory holding that speakers adjust their speaking style to their listeners to gain social approval and achieve greater communication effectiveness” (De Vito, 421). Although the theory of communication accommodation was first looked at in the 1970s under …show more content…
Just as we now understand communication involves more than just words, so has this theory. In the 1980s the theory took on the …show more content…
Although they may have a different term for the theory, they have studied how adjustment are made from each of their respective fields. CAT has even been studied in how we make adjustments in very specific areas such as in inter-gender and intra-gender communication (Dragojevic et al, 8). There are also studies and research available which demonstrate how certain professions have to eliminate jargon or technical terminology to more effectively communicate with others, such as doctors speaking with their patients, or police communicating with the public (Dragojevic et al, 10,