Communication accommodation between patients and health professionals: Themes and strategies in satisfying and unsatisfying encounters

This paper has several goals. One is to introduce and contextualize the papers that contribute to this special issue. All of the papers in the issue are grounded in Communication Accommodation Theory and Coupland, Wiemann & Giles'(1991) typology of miscommunication. These theories are briefly reviewed here, and some links between them are explored in the context of the contributory papers. Another goal of this paper is to discuss some of the themes and issues raised by a reading of the other papers as a set. In this regard, two issues which may be worthy of further research and theoretical attention in the future are selected and highlighted. First, the degree to which communicators are aware of various language and communication strategies, especially accommodation strategies, is considered. The relationship between awareness and research tasks such as self-reporting is important here. Second, the concept of accommodation dilemmas, their relationship to miscommunication and problematic talk, along with possible avenues of dilemma resolution are explored