Understanding each other: Strategies for accommodation in a virtual business team project based in China

The use of accommodation strategies between native and nonnative interlocutors of English in the rapidly
increased digital and global business communication contexts remains underresearched. Contextualized in a
Chinese IT outsourcing company where English is used as a lingua franca, this study focuses on how
accommodation strategies are used by both on-and offshore team project members in their virtual meeting
exchanges. The paper argues that the actual linguistic exchange appears to be scaffolded and facilitated by a
series of what the authors call “extratextual accommodation strategies” such as the use of detailed minutes of
tasks set and completed, and an agreed meeting format. While “intratextual accommodation strategies,” that is,
those relating to specific linguistic behaviors in English in the exchanges are also used by interlocutors to
accommodate to each other’s speech; the paper argues, therefore, that both extra-and intratextual
accommodation strategies appear to work in a symbiotic way to ensure successful exchange in business virtual
meeting contexts.