I notice that when some people are surrounded by others with foreign accents, or by some speakers of ethnolects or simply speakers of regional dialects, they tend to take on some of the pronounciations of the people they're in contact with.
For instance, I can be at an Asian restaraunt with friends or family, and I'll notice that some of them take on an Asian flavor in their English, as if to sound more humble or to fit in. Or a lot of white people will take on an ebonics flavor in their speech when they're speaking with blacks.
In my case, when I'm speaking to rural, farmer-types, or people from various regions of the U.S. where a twang or drawl is common, I will take on a few of their dialect features in my own speech.
As an example, I've been doing a lot of talking with people from our company's corporate headquarters in St. Louis. A lot of them have this twang/drawl accent, and as a result of always speaking with them on the phone, such a way of speaking finds its way into my normal speech among fellow Californians by accident. While speaking with these people from St Louis, I subconciously adopt some of the features of their speech, I suppose as a way of appearing more like them. I don't realize it for the most part as I'm doing it, until a certain point in the converstion where I realize that I'm not pronouncing the 'g' in "-ing", and that my 'r's have become over-stressed, or my vowels have been elongated, etc.
Deborah
Re: Have you ever acquired a new accent?
Porthos wrote:
I notice that when some people are surrounded by others with foreign accents, or by some speakers of ethnolects or simply speakers of regional dialects, they tend to take on some of the pronounciations of the people they're in contact with.
I did that, a bit, when I was in college in North Carolina (which I then pronounced somewhere between "Carolina" and Carolana"). When I'd go home at Christmas, my mother would tell me I'd picked up quite a bit of the accent.
I was in England for a couple of weeks when I was 19, and found it a real effort to keep from trying to talk like the natives. The same thing happened when I was 16 and had the opportunity to be an extra onstage with the Royal Ballet. It's especially difficult when it's an accent you like. Even when your feelings about an accent are neutral (as are mine toward the Castilian accent), it's hard to resist. Partly because I started learning Spanish with a Mexican teacher, partly because I'm surrounded by people with various Latin American accents, and partly out of some misplaced loyalty to a former boyfriend who hated the Castilian accent, I've been making all my C's and Z's sound like S's, but my Spanish teach is from Madrid, and in my last class, to my surprise, I heard a full-fledged TH come out of my mouth!
Liz
Yes, I have the annoying habit of starting to speak the same way my partner in conversation do. I'm not mimicking or, heaven forbid, mocking others' speech style and accent -- it's a subconscious behaviour on my part.
If others notice it, they are inclined to think that I'm making fun of them, but in fact I don't.
Nowadays I stand a good chance of acquiring a Chech accent in German as I'm hanging around with Chechs most of the time.
When I used to speak Russian with a Russian friend of mine, I had a good Russian accent, but at the very moment she left I switched back to my heavily (foreign) accented Russian.
There are some exchange students around who speak with an American accent. After having a chat with them for a while, I usually catch myself speaking with an American accent. An American accent is highly incompatible with my person under normal circumstances. Besides, I can't speak it normally - I either overexaggerate my r-s or I switch back to my originally acquired non-rhoticity. I could be a good AAVE speaker on account of that, though, which is still an American accent.
Maybe it's just an illusion, I have never been told whether it's true or not...But my "mimicking-others-accents-subconsciously-without-ill-will" sort of linguistic behaviour is an indisputable fact in the majority of cases.
ddog800
Ahh yeah, I have noticed this before as well. I live in Louisiana, where there is a lot of that typical southern U.S. accent. I run an IT business, and have noticed when dealing with certain customers that my southern drawl becomes much more pronounced particularly when I'm dealing with one of those "good-ol'-boy" types who also has a very pronounced southern drawl. I've thought about it before, and all I can figure is that, subconsciously, it has a lot to do with customer service and me trying to give the customer the perception of better familiarity, and hence, more customer confidence.
When I'm dealing with vendors from up north, I have noticed that any trace of a southern accent seems (from my point of view) to disappear almost entirely. As for what my actual natural accent is, and it's difficult to say what your own accent sounds like sometimes, but I have had people here ask me if I was even born and raised here (which I was) because my accent doesn't sound 'southern' to them at all :P. However, if someone not from the south listened to my accent, they would probably notice the southern elements pretty easily.
In fact, when I went up to Maryland a few years ago, no one had any problem picking out that I was from the south. Very interesting, these accents hehe.
Elaine
Yes, I'm one of those people who unconsciously lapses into the accent of those I'm around. Whenever I visit my cousins out in East Los I end up sounding chola matona. And whenever I chat with my sistas in the secretarial pool, I pick up their South-Central LA accents. I also mentioned previously how I would pick up the Long Island J.A.P. accents of my old boss' female relatives. Oy, ich vais... !
Walker
I must admit that I'm no exception. I used to be an opponent of the acquiring of new accents. I was almost upset with a guy in my dorm in Uppsala because of his having acquired a new accent all of a sudden. I wanted to yell "what the hell's the matter with you?! Have you no identity? No pride?". I think my reaction was due to his being from the same province as me. I still wonder sometimes how people can be so easily influenced. However, during my time there I unconsciously acquired a bit of an accent myself. But not the Uppsala accent. No, the source of the slight distortion of my intonation was a guy in my dorm who was from Värmland, the province that Kirk's Swedish ancestors came from. They have a very funny accent over there. My dad once asked me discreetly if my accent had changed while I was living in Uppsala, but I denied it, kind of.
So I have gotten some more understanding of how people can acquire a new accent.
After only a couple of days in Ireland we'd acquired a bit of an Irish accent. At the end of the trip, however, our accents 'changed back' a bit after we'd hung out with a couple of Americans.
Bashar
After growing up in Ohio & Texas I once found myself working in a supermarket in central New Jersey (where everyone, contrary to popular belief, pronounces every R). I used to say "call" so that it rhymed with "doll," but not anymore.
(however, I never said "horrible" like "harrible," and I never said the A in "carry" like the A in "cat," that just seemed like overdoing it)
