Pragmatic Accommodation Strategies in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) Communication

Abstract

Accommodation is a natural and prevailing communicative behaviour in social interactions. It has been emphasised as a key factor for successful intercultural communication through English as a lingua franca (ELF). The aim of this study was to explore how accommodation might operate in ELF communication, focusing on convergent pragmatic strategies for efficient and cooperative interactions. The data were 12 hours of ELF conversations among international students in a UK university. Conversation Analysis (CA) was employed to analyse and identify sequential features of accommodation in ELF. Findings showed that participants frequently used convergent strategies such as echoing repetition, lexical replacement, and code-switching. The major purposes of convergent accommodation were mutual understanding and collaboration. For shared comprehension, speakers modified their speech to adapt to interlocutors’ linguistic capacity and cultural expectations and to be more comprehensible. The desire for mutual understanding was closely intertwined with collaboration, which showed alignment and built rapport. For successful ELF interactions, ELF speakers need to understand the pragmatic role of accommodation and use convergent and adaptive strategies to enhance flexibility and facilitate communication in ELF contexts.