Semi-Communicatie - Het Effect Van Accommodatie Door de Spreker

In inter-Scandinavian communication, participants usually speak their mother tongues, accepting certain comprehension problems, but not expecting those problems to lead to a break down in communication. People often tend to apply convergent accommodation strategies, such as a slightly lower speech rate, a more distinct pronunciation, or avoidance of words known to be difficult to understand. This paper takes a look at the effects of comprehension understanding of Swedish in Denmark when accommodation strategies are used. In an experiment, comprehension of four Swedish texts was tested under the following conditions: (A0) no accommodation, (Al) (use of one) accommodation strategy, (A2) a combination of two strategies, and (A3) a combination of three strategies. Results show a moderate increase in comprehension between A0 and Al, Al and A2/A3 and a robust (significant) increase between (A0) and A2/A3. This effect, however, does not depend on hearers' perception of accommodation and must therefore be explained by objective criteria, such as the rise in processing time following from a lower speech rate. No effect of accommodation was seen between A2 and A3. This means that the maximum effect of accommodation is reached when speakers use a combination of two different accommodation strategies.