1988/03/01 by Nikolas Coupland, Justine Coupland, Howard Giles +1 · 8 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Accommodation #Conceptual framework #Conceptualization #Divergence (linguistics) #Epistemology #Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Linguistics #Multilingual Education and Policy #Philosophy #Psychology #Social science #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0047404500012574
openalex publication_date 1988/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
ABSTRACT The article begins by exploring briefly the role of the elderly in sociolinguistic theory and research. After an outline of the parameters of speech accommodation theory together with a new schematic model, it is argued that speech accommodation theory is a profitable framework for elucidating the sociolinguistic mechanics of, and the social psychological processes underlying, intergenerational encounters. A recent conceptual foray in this direction, which highlights young-to-elderly language strategies, is then overviewed with some illustrations. Contrastive data from a case study are then introduced, a discourse analysis of which allows us to conceptualize various elderly-to-young language strategies. This interpretive analysis suggests important avenues for extending speech accommodation theory itself. A revised, more sociolinguistically elaborated version of this framework is then presented which highlights strategies beyond those of convergence, maintenance, and divergence and leads to the conceptualization of over - and under accommodation. Finally, and on the basis of the foregoing, a new model of intergenerational communication is proposed and Ryan et al.'s (1986) “communicative predicament” framework duly revised. (Accommodation theory, elderly, overaccommodation, case studies, discourse management, stereotypes, underaccommodation, interdisciplinary)