ACCOMMODATION STRATEGIES IN CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH

Abstract

The paper examines accommodation strategies adopted by speakers in their interactions in Adichie’s Americanah. In oral discourse, the speech of speakers is often similar to the speech pattern of their addressees or they differ from it. The process is referred to as speech accommodation. A speaker is said to converge to the speech of the addressee when it is similar or to diverge when it is away from it. Using Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah, this study seeks to identify the accommodation strategies adopted by the characters and the motivations for the strategies .It also seeks to identify the varieties of language the author employed to reflect the social classes of the characters. To achieve these objectives, eight sample excerpts purposively selected from the text were used as data. Findings revealed that both convergence and divergence strategies identified were mainly motivated by the topic under discussion and the setting. Again, convergence strategies identified were motivated by a desire to get on well with others and make them comfortable while divergence strategies were motivated by a desire to be judged less favourably which in turn reflects social distance.