Chapter 7. Within-speaker accommodation behavior in apology-centered interactions

Abstract

The present study explores the extent to which vocal accommodation in conflicting situations can be explained by socio-pragmatic factors such as interpersonal relationships (i.e., politeness) and pragmatic events occurring in apology-centered interactions. A total of 28 dyadic conversations where 14 target speakers (8 males and 6 females) interacted in apology-centered role-plays with a status superior and a friend interlocutor were annotated phonetically, orthographically, pragmatically and analyzed separately. Accommodation was measured with the difference-in-distance paradigm comparing the first and last 30% of the conversations. The main results indicate that the conversations with a status superior are characterized by more divergent behavior than the conversations with a friend. These findings suggest that interpersonal power dynamics between interlocutors could serve as a predictor for accommodation behavior.