Language Contact

What happens when we talk to people from different countries? In conversations, whether intentionally or not, we tend to adjust our language to match that of our conversation partners. For example, when an American tourist visits the United Kingdom, s/he quickly realizes that words such as "faucet" and "diaper" aren't commonly used, leading to a switch to "tap" and "nappy." Similarly, a British tourist in America might realize that using the term "rubber" can cause confusion, as it refers to a "condom," prompting a change to "eraser." An Australian in the United Kingdom or America might need to replace "thongs" with "flip-flops". This linguistic adaptation extends to other languages as well. For instance, if an American has Italian friends, s/he might occasionally greet them in Italian, saying "ciao," to express closeness to that group. Speech accommodation seems to be a nearly universal and likely innate human tendency toward behavioral synchronization. Subconsciously, we all aim to be liked and understood, reflecting our desire for social approval.

Divergence, on the other hand, is uncommon and typically has a clear explanation, such as geopolitical tension or national rivalry. But what aspects of communication do we accommodate? Almost anything, including body language, speech rate, rhythm, silence, gaze direction, and more. Linguistically, however, accommodation typically occurs phonetically, grammatically, and lexically. Phonetically, for instance, during significant events such as job interviews: people often show a tendency to reduce specific stigmatized features such as the td-deletion, (last night ➔ las night), H-dropping (house ➔ ouse), and ing-reduction (running ➔ runnin'). Additionally, people's accents also change over prolonged exposure to other accents. For example, a study involving English speakers in Japan revealed that American participants with strong social connections to Brits and Aussies experienced slight changes in pronunciation after a year. Words as "better," initially pronounced as "bedder," transformed into "betta," and words as "bath," pronounced as "bæth," shifted to "baath."

From a grammatical perspective, another instance of accommodation could involve adopting new syntactic structures. A study tracking a Texan teenage girl from age nine to twenty revealed that, upon relocating to a different city for work, she began employing the "had + past variant" construction instead of the simple past. For instance, she started saying, "When I was workin’ at Billups, me and the manager had became good friends."

Adapting linguistic elements from a different dialect or language is not consistently flawless; it can be a partial, incomplete, or occasionally inaccurately executed process (for example, "Ca-peesh" instead of "capisci" in Italian). With time, this adaptation may solidify to a certain degree, giving rise to semi-permanent accommodative patterns.