Linguistic Accommodation Strategies in Inter-ethnic Communication in Calabar, Cross River State

Linguistic accommodation, the adjustment of one's speech style toward or away from an interlocutor's perceived linguistic identity, is a fundamental mechanism of inter-ethnic communication management in multilingual Nigerian urban spaces. This study examines linguistic accommodation strategies deployed in inter-ethnic communication contexts in Calabar, Cross River State, a city characterized by significant Efik, Ejagham, Bekwarra, and Igbo community presence alongside a substantial migrant population. Data were collected through audio-recorded interactions in four inter-ethnic contexts, namely a market, a hospital outpatient unit, a church fellowship meeting, and a neighbourhood association meeting, supplemented by stimulated recall interviews with forty interaction participants. Communication accommodation theory provided the primary analytical framework, with convergence, divergence, and maintenance strategies identified and classified. Results show that convergence toward the interlocutor's perceived dominant language is the predominant accommodation strategy in commercial and institutional contexts, with speakers regularly shifting toward Efik, English, or Nigerian Pidgin depending on perceived interlocutor background. Divergence is rare in face-to-face contexts but appears in competitive verbal exchanges at the neighbourhood association meeting, where it serves identity assertion functions. The study notes that accommodation competence is unevenly distributed, with longer-term Calabar residents showing more flexible and accurate accommodation than recent migrants. The findings contribute to accommodation theory research in Nigerian multilingual urban contexts. Keywords: linguistic accommodation, inter-ethnic communication, Calabar, communication accommodation theory, multilingualism.