Explore the vast range of titles available.

Guided by Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT; Giles et al. 1987), this qualitative study documents the perceptions of Spanish-speaking Latin American immigrants regarding the communicative behaviors that native speakers make when interacting with them in the Canadian workplace. The findings of this phenomenological study resulted from a thematic analysis of 24 semi-structured interviews. Participants gave their accounts of those communicative behaviors by native speakers that they considered helpful to facilitate interactions and enhance their relations (accommodation). Participants also shared examples of nonaccommodative instances where they perceived that their native-speaking peers did not adjust or sufficiently adjust their communicative behaviors (underaccommodation) or engaged in a communicative behaviour that went beyond what was necessary for the interaction (overaccommodation). Based on these findings, this study offers insights into those behaviors and practices that could contribute to constructive interactions between nonnative and native speakers in the workplace. Résumé: Guidée par la théorie de l'accommodation de la communication (CAT ; Giles et al. 1987), cette étude qualitative documente les perceptions des immigrants latino-américains hispanophones concernant les comportements de communication que les locuteurs natifs adoptent lorsqu'ils interagissent avec eux sur le lieu de travail canadien. Les résultats de cette étude phénoménologique résultent d'une analyse thématique de 24 entretiens semi-directifs. Les participants ont donné leur avis sur les comportements communicatifs de locuteurs natifs qu'ils considéraient comme utiles pour faciliter les interactions et améliorer leurs relations (accommodation). Les participants ont également partagé des exemples de cas non accommodants où ils ont perçu que leurs pairs de langue maternelle n'avaient pas ajusté ou suffisamment ajusté leurs comportements de communication (sous-accommodation) ou s'étaient engagés dans un comportement de communication qui allait au-delà de ce qui était nécessaire pour l'interaction (sur-accommodation). Sur la base de ces résultats, cette étude offre un aperçu des comportements et des pratiques qui pourraient contribuer à des interactions constructives entre locuteurs non natifs et natifs sur le lieu de travail.

Effective health care communication is crucial in the medical field. However, effective communication in clinical practice still faces numerous obstacles, and large language models (LLMs) offer various possibilities for improving the quality of medical communication. To date, there are no published reviews on the use of LLMs in health care communication. This review sought to summarize the applications and challenges of LLMs in health care communication and to identify directions for future research. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library from January 2018 to November 2025. The search and selection process followed the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) guideline and the PRISMA-S (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses literature search extension) checklist. Eligible studies used LLMs to facilitate health care communication among the public, patients, and clinicians. Following rigorous data extraction and cross-checking, we conducted a quantitative analysis of characteristics of the included literature. Furthermore, using communication accommodation theory as a framework, we identified application patterns of LLMs in health care communication and summarized current challenges and future directions. Ninety-six studies were included in this review, all published between 2023 and 2025, summarizing 4 patterns of LLM application in health care communication: transforming medical information (n=30), facilitating dynamic interaction (n=38), empowering communication capabilities (n=10), and optimizing clinical workflows (n=18). The role of LLMs in health care communication is undergoing a paradigm shift from \"static information processing\" to \"dynamic intelligent interaction.\" Although they show great promise for practical applications, current evaluation methods and dimensions exhibit significant heterogeneity. Furthermore, LLMs still face multiple challenges in their practical application in health care communication, including technical reliability issues, social trust and adoption, interaction and access barriers, and clinical integration challenges. Unlike previous studies that merely touched upon the challenges and future directions, this scoping review uses communication accommodation theory to systematically map the application patterns and developmental landscape of LLM-mediated health care communication. Health care communication powered by LLMs holds significant innovation potential and is currently still in the early stages of rapid development. Future research should focus on optimizing model performance, strengthening ethical governance frameworks, enhancing human-machine collaboration models, and ensuring responsible application of LLMs in health care through rigorous empirical validation.

Conversations encompass continuous exchanges of verbal and nonverbal information. Previous research has demonstrated that gestures dynamically entrain each other and that speakers tend to align their vocal properties. While gesture and speech are known to synchronize at the intrapersonal level, few studies have investigated the multimodal dynamics of gesture/speech between individuals. The present study aims to extend our comprehension of unimodal dynamics of speech and gesture to multimodal speech/gesture dynamics. We used an online dataset of 14 dyads engaged in unstructured conversation. Speech and gesture synchronization was measured with cross-wavelets at different timescales. Results supported previous research on intrapersonal speech/gesture coordination, finding synchronization at all timescales of the conversation. Extending the literature, we also found interpersonal synchronization between speech and gesture. Given that the unimodal and multimodal synchronization occurred at similar timescales, we suggest that synchronization likely depends on the vocal channel, particularly on the turn-taking dynamics of the conversation.

Interlocutors make a variety of verbal and nonverbal adjustments to facilitate comprehension and enhance relational solidarity. This article examines research on vocal accommodation and mimicry as a specific subset of scholarship on nonverbal adjustments. We begin by introducing communication accommodation theory and discussing how accommodation is similar to and distinct from other related constructs (i.e., reciprocity, synchrony, and mimicry). Next, we discuss a variety of contexts in which researchers have studied vocal accommodation and mimicry, namely romantic and family communication, stranger and friend communication, professional communication, and persuasion. We end by outlining directions for future research, such as examining the implications of vocal accommodation for intergenerational family relationships, and the a priori factors that influence people’s ability and willingness to engage in vocal accommodation and mimicry.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HoH) people often face communication barriers that limit their access to crucial information. This study investigates which modalities deaf people used to gather information from various sources, and which factors predicted accessibility, satisfaction, and wellbeing. We report the findings from an accessible survey study, released in two written and three signed languages. Responses from 395 deaf/HoH UK and Spanish residents were collected online shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic breakout. We investigated whether the onset and Level of Deafness, knowledge of sign language, Residence, and self-assessed reading skill predicted the frequency with which they found accessible information, their satisfaction levels with the information accessed, and their physical and mental health. We found that most deaf/HoH people relied on subtitles to access information from the government and the news, but when signed information was available (i.e., from deaf organisations), SL was the preferred modality of access. Our main finding was that reading skill was a key predictor, with less skilled readers being at a disadvantage, less satisfied, and having lower health outcomes. Our findings advocate for facilitating more signed information, as well as releasing written information at appropriate reading levels and improving literacy programmes for deaf people.

When communicating, individuals alter their language to fulfill a myriad of social functions. In particular, linguistic convergence and divergence are fundamental in establishing and maintaining group identity. Quantitatively characterizing linguistic convergence is important when testing hypotheses surrounding language, including interpersonal and group communication. We provide a quantitative interpretation of linguistic convergence grounded in information theory. We then construct a computational model, built on top of a neural network model of language, that can be deployed to measure and test hypotheses about linguistic convergence in “big data.” We demonstrate the utility of our convergence measurement in two case studies: (1) showing that our measurement is indeed sensitive to linguistic convergence across turns in dyadic conversation, and (2) showing that our convergence measurement is sensitive to social factors that mediate convergence in Internet-based communities (specifically, r/MensRights and r/MensLib). Our measurement also captures differences in which social factors influence web-based communities. We conclude by discussing methodological and theoretical implications of this semantic convergence analysis.

Semantic communication has attracted considerable interest due to its potential to support emerging human-centric services, such as holographic communications, extended reality (XR), and human-machine interactions. Different from traditional communication systems that focus on minimizing the symbol-level distortion (e.g., bit error rate, signal-to-noise ratio, etc.), semantic communication targets at delivering the intended meaning at the destination user which is often quantified by various statistical divergences, often referred to as the semantic distances. Currently, there still lacks a unified framework to quantify the rate-distortion tradeoff for semantic communication with different task-specific semantic distance measures. To tackle this problem, we propose the task-specific rate-distortion theory for semantic communication where different task-specific statistic divergence metrics can be considered. To investigate the impact of different semantic distance measures on the achievable rate, we consider two popular tasks, classification and signal generation. We present the closed-form expressions of the semantic rate-distortion functions for these two different tasks and compare their performance under various scenarios. Extensive experimental results are presented to verify our theoretical results.

How do moderation policies affect online discussion? This article analyzes nearly a quarter of a million anonymous comments over a 14-month period from two online Reddit forums matched in topic and size, but with differing moderation policies of “safe space” and “free speech.” I found that in the safe space, moderators removed significantly more comments, and authors deleted their own comments significantly more often as well, suggesting higher rates of self-censorship. Looking only at relatively low frequency posters, I found that language in the safe space is more positive and discussions are more about leisure activities, whereas language in the free speech space is relatively negative and angry, and material personal concerns of work, money, and death are more frequently discussed. Importantly, I found that many of these linguistic differences persisted even in comments by users who were concurrently posting in both subreddits. Altogether, these results suggest that differences in moderation policies may affect self-censorship and language use in online space, implicating moderation policies as key sites of inquiry for scholars of democratic discussion.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate whether the convergence of linguistic features between physicians and patients with chronic diseases facilitates the effectiveness of physician–patient communication in online health communities (OHCs). Drawing on communication accommodation theory (CAT), the authors develop a research model that illustrates how the convergence of semantic features (language concreteness and emotional intensity) and stylistic features (language style) influence patient satisfaction and compliance. The model also incorporates the moderating effects of the physician's social status and the patients' complications.Design/methodology/approachThe data, collected from a prominent online health platform in China, include 15,448 consultation records over five years. The logistic regression is leveraged to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe findings reveal that convergent semantic features, such as language concreteness and emotional intensity, along with stylistic features like language style, enhance patient satisfaction, which in turn leads to increased compliance. Additionally, the physician’s social status strengthens the effect of convergent emotional intensity but weakens the effect of convergent language concreteness. The physician’s social status has no significant impact on the link between convergent language style and satisfaction. Patients' complications weaken the effect of satisfaction on their compliance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the CAT and OHC literature by enhancing the understanding of the role of linguistic convergence in the effectiveness of online physician–patient communication and provides managerial implications for physicians on how to accommodate their communicative styles toward chronic patients to improve patient satisfaction and compliance.

The exponential growth of the medical tourism industry, particularly in India, has highlighted the importance of effective communication between healthcare providers and international patients. This study explores the role of Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) in enhancing doctor-patient communication in the Indian medical tourism sector, focusing on cultural competence and its impact on patient experiences. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 1,476 international patients at a healthcare institution in Delhi. Data were collected using a comprehensive questionnaire designed to capture cross-cultural communication nuances. The study employed a post-positivist research approach, and data were analysed using SPSSv24, Smart PLS 3, and MGA-PLS to examine the relationships between various communication-related factors and patient experiences. The analysis revealed that patients’ subjective beliefs and expectations about healthcare or medical tourism significantly influence their healthcare experiences. A strong positive relationship (path coefficient = 0.809) was found between subjective beliefs and patient experience, indicating that culturally competent communication leads to better outcomes. The study also found that patient expectations mediated the relationship between subjective beliefs and patient experiences, emphasizing the need for healthcare providers to manage and meet these expectations effectively. The results underscored the importance of cultural sensitivity in medical communication, particularly regarding gender norms, non-verbal cues, and communication styles.