Non-convergent discourse

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A non-convergent discourse (NCD) is a discourse in which the participants do not accommodate on the language level, which results in the use of different languages. Alternative names for this phenomenon are asymmetric and bilingual discourse.

The term was introduced by the sociolinguist Reitze Jonkman. He distinguishes two motivations for people to engage in an NCD:

• Insufficient active knowledge of the other participants' language, combined with a good passive knowledge. This type of NCD is common in the Germanic languages of the Scandinavian-Nordic region of Europe, where the differences between Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are relatively small, and do not necessarily obstruct use of the participants' native languages. The same occurs to a lesser degree between speakers of Portuguese and Spanish (and their respective variants), where it is also possible to understand what the other person is saying as long as it is said slowly; (as such between residents of Spain and Portugal as well as between residents of Brazil and neighbouring Spanish-speaking countries). Another examples are Tatar and Bashkir languages.

• Ethnic marking: the use of a preferred variety, in order to stress one's belonging to a certain cultural or ethnic group. This occurs in Northern Germany, for example, where speakers of Low German and standard German do not accommodate.

A third motivation for engaging in an NCD lies on the personal level. According to Giles' accommodation theory, interpersonal contacts are negotiations. In a discourse, people seek to create understanding by stressing common features. However, when this will for creating understanding is not present (for example, in cases where the participants feel a strong dislike for each other), they dissociate from each other by stressing the differences. The use of different languages might be the result of such a dissociation strategy.

Sometimes the motivation for engaging in an NCD is misunderstood, especially in contexts where they are uncommon. NCD participants with an ethnic marking strategy might be wrongly interpreted as if they were expressing dislike. This type of misunderstanding is especially common among speakers who come from monolingual areas and find themselves in a bilingual area, where a second language is used alongside their own and NCDs are common.de:NCD nl:NCD (taalkunde)