Numerous studies have shown that some speech accommodation in interactions with the elderly can aid communication. "Over"accommodaters, however, employing features such as high pitch, exaggerated prosody, and child-like forms of address, often demean, infantilise, and patronise elderly interlocutors rather than facilitate comprehension.…

In conversations between bilinguals, each of whom is a learner of the other's language, two different local patterns of codeswitching may emerge: compliance and mutual convergence. It is argued that a pattern of compliance is ultimately more accommodating that convergence, contrary to the claims of Speech Accommodation Theory. (20 references)…

In an investigation into communicative behavior, Filipino-American students were studied during two student organization meetings and through subsequent surveys of their backgrounds and sense of ethnicity. Focus is on the communicative norms, notably the constant simultaneous talk. (Contains 28 references.) (Author/LB)