‘ … For them it’s a sign of respect’: examining mothers’ adjustment strategies using communication accommodation theory

We used Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) to examine how mothers use communication accommodation behaviours to adjust social distance, manage relational expectations, and assert agency within familial and social contexts. Our study contributes to existing CAT research by offering theoretically grounded explanations of how CAT operates in understudied African contexts and by engaging the African Communication Accommodation Paradigm as a paradigmatic extension of CAT. We discussed how accommodative norms, power that (re)produce these norms, (non)accommodative behaviours shape cognitions, and adjustment behaviours among mothers living in West Africa.