Evaluation of Accent Convergence and Divergence in Cooperative and Competitive Intergroup Situations*

Abstract

In this paper a link is made between two different research fields: sociolinguistics and intergroup relations. The experiment presented tests the hypothesis that accent convergence is considered more natural in an intergroup cooperation situation and accent divergence more natural in an intergroup competition situation. Sixty‐eight subjects from a Swiss regional ethnolinguistic group participated in four experimental conditions: (1) intergroup cooperation‐accent convergence; (2) intergroup cooperation–accent divergence; (3) intergroup competition‐accent convergence; (4) intergroup competition–accent divergence. The hypothesis that accent divergence would be evaluated more favourably than accent convergence during intergroup competition was verified. The ingroup member was perceived more favourably during competition when his accent diverged from the outgroup member's than during cooperation when his accent converged toward the accent of the outgroup member.