Positive Speech Accommodation in the Language of Mexican American Bilinguals: Are Women Really More Sensitive?

Abstract

Recent work on women's use of language has presented two conflicting views: (a) that women use speech patterns that are unique and exclusive to them, and (b) that women's use of language varies (as it does for males) according to the situation, context, and interlocutors involved. This paper explores positive speech accommodation (the attempt to adopt the speech patterns of an interlocutor) in code-switching styles by Mexican American males and females in response to the speech of three male speakers. According to the first view of language presented above, women would be more likely to accommodate to the speech of male speakers. The principal hypothesis of this paper is that, given a situation where no rewards are expected and no gain is to be found by exhibiting convergent behavior, there will be no difference in speech accommodation by male and female Mexican American bilinguals. Data presented support the second of the two positions presented above.