Introduction to Accommodation Theory - Second Language Acquisition

1.  Accommodation theory developed by Howard Giles shares certain assumptions with Schuman's Acculturation model (1978).
2. It draws attention to the roles of socio-psychological attitudes, motivation, formal instruction, and larger community or environment in L2 learning.
3. Giles (1973) describes how people adjust their language and communication patterns to those of other people.
4. The theory has been used in the fields of social psychology and sociolinguistics.
5. It identifies the relationship between in-group (learner's social group) and out-group (target language community).
6. Such relationships are responsible for the success in learning L2.
7. For Giles and Bryne (1982), the relationship between in-group and out-group is dynamic and constantly changing.
8. It does not explain the internal mechanisms of how a child acquires a second language.
9. It is essentially a socio-psychological model rather than a cognitive processing model.
10. It takes into account the ethnic identity in language learning.