Language Expectancy Theory - Expectations

Expectations

The theory views language expectancies as enduring patterns of anticipated communication behavior which are grounded in a society's psychological and cultural norms. Such societal forces influence language and enable the identification of non-normative use; violations of linguistic, syntactic and semantic expectations will either facilitate or inhibit an audience's receptivity to persuasion. Burgoon claims applications for his theory in management, media, politics and medicine, and declares that his empirical research has shown a greater effect than expectancy violations theory, the domain of which does not extend to the spoken word.

LET argues that typical language behaviors fall within a normative "bandwidth" of expectations determined by a source's perceived credibility, the individual listener's normative expectations and a group's normative social climate, and generally supports a gender-stereotypical reaction to the use of profanity, for example.

Communication expectancies are said to derive from three factors:

1. The communicator – individual features, such as ethos or source credibility, personality, appearance, social status and gender.
2. The relationship between a receiver and a communicator, including factors such as attraction, similarity and status equality.
3. Context; i.e., privacy and formality constraints on interaction.