Abstract
Czech speakers' accommodation was investigated in a conversation task with a non-native interlocutor: a task that was expected to favour the modification of speech patterns. The subjects also performed the same task with a native interlocutor.
Four native speakers of Czech were recorded in these two communicative situations. The materials comprise around 4 hours of recorded speech.
Speech rate, prosodic segmentation and speech modifications were analyzed acoustically and perceptually. The subjects' lexicon and different conversational phenomena such as repairs and turn-taking organization were also studied.
In addition, language policy materials were analyzed and more than 10 research interviews were conducted with non-native speakers of Czech about their experience with Czech intercultural communication. The results suggest that although subjects had individual accommodation strategies and that these strategies in Czech are rather "unanchored", obvious parallels can be seen.
For example, with regard to phonetic adaptation, shorter phonemic clauses were used and stronger prosodic segmentation of utterances was observed. Significant differences (p < 0.5) were also found in speakers' articulation rate, and the speakers adapted their speech on a semantic-pragmatic level by their word choice and repetition of utterances.
Other important aspects included anticipation of response signals and use of gestures.