de:NCD nl:non-convergent discourse

A non-convergent discourse or 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 has been introduced by the sociolinguist Reitze Jonkman. He distinguishes two motivations for people to engage in an NCD:

• Insufficient active knowledge of the language of the other participants' language, combined with a good passive knowledge. This type of NCD is common in Scandinavia, where the differences between the Germanic varieties are relatively small, and do not necessarily obstruct use of the participants' mother tongues.

• Ethnic marking: the use of a preferred variety, in order to stress one's belonging to a certain cultural or ethnic group. This occurs for example in Northern Germany, where speakers of Low and High 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. When, however, this will for creating understanding is not present, e.g. in cases, in which the participants feel a strong dislike of each other, the opposite 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 falsely understood 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, in which a second language is used alongside with their own, and where NCDs are common use.