The study investigates Chinese college teachers’ choice between Chinese
dialects and Mandarin in casual talks with friends and in service encounters. The
data collected through a questionnaire and several observations shows a strong
tendency of convergence toward friends in casual talks and a strong tendency of
divergence from strangers in service encounters (if the latter are known to be able to
understand the teachers’ dialect). The motives underlying the convergence to friends
include the desires to reduce the social distance, to be well understood, to be friendly
and to be respectful. On occasions where convergence to service workers in service
encounters does exist, most teachers seem to take the desire to be well understood as
the motive underlying this convergence. This contrast shows their desire to keep
their intergroup distinctiveness. No matter how they choose to converge or diverge
in communication, Chinese college teachers seem to be almost unanimous in their
positive attitudes toward their interlocutors’ convergence to them. Thus far, all the
three research questions have been answered, and it seems safe to conclude that CAT
has been well supported in this study