Abstract
Real life conversations do not include formal spoken interactions all the time; learning to use slang will help convergence, divergence, and maintenance, which constitute speech accommodation theory. Convergence is “accommodation towards the speech of one’s interlocutors” (Meyerhoff, 2006, p. 307). In other words, how individuals are familiarized to each other’s linguistic features during speech. In the case of ELLs, they needed to gain social approval in their new community, which makes convergence occur. They use slang to maintain their social approval and construct their identity. Their convergence is downward convergence since they use slang to belong to their school community arabic 5 English 41