Accent slip - real or fake? (Not too serious)

[Idkrealorfake]

M dp has a friend who visits sometimes after moving away some months ago to live in the region where they spent the first few years of their childhood.

I noticed that when they arrived to visit, we had a full conversation together and they spoke the same as they ever did, before the move.

Then a couple of hours later we were out in a restaurant and when speaking to the staff, the friend's accent changed entirely, taking on a different lilt and pronouncing words completely differently. The new accent didn't match that of the people running the restaurant either, who were from a different region to all of us.

After the meal, and for the rest of the visit, speaking to others etc the new accent didn't reappear again once.

We didn't say anything in the restaurant to the friend, but I mentioned it to dp afterwards. I thought the accent change seemed odd, especially as it didn't last long and never reappeared that weekend. Dp agreed they'd not heard that accent before from them, but suggested it could be something that happens naturally to people sometimes. I'm curious about it, and wondered what caused it and if it would be terribly rude to point it out if it happens again. I felt weird that neither of us mentioned it at the time, it was such a change.

I'm aware of code switching which makes sense to me and I find myself doing it sometimes myself, but it's not really a conscious thing and not a change to an entirely different regional accent.

This was more like switching from their regular Leeds accent to a Somerset one and then back to Leeds for the rest of the time.

What do you think caused it?

YABU, it's perfectly normal in these circumstances
YANBU, it's odd

Where's 'The North', are you talking about Birmingham and up?? When I'm in the North East, Newcastle area, I tend to pick up a slight accent from there subconsciously, I think it's a lovely accent.

It’s a natural empathic response. People alter their speech patterns, rhythms, tone and attenuation, vocabulary, and accents depending on who they are speaking to and the situation they are in.

People who travelled well when they were young, or who were exposed to a wider variety of accents and cultures develop a greater flexibility in their voice than those who remain exposed to a single sociopath-economic class and a single geographical area.

So if child A grows up with parents for example who are in the military, they travel the world and are exposed to many children of different cultures and or nationalities, they will likely have a greater ability to be flexible in their vocalisations when they are adults.

Whilst Child B who grows up on a housing estate in the Birmingham and who is predominantly socialised with children from the estate who also have parents in similar work, similar backgrounds and the same local accent, and who for whatever reason do not mix cross culturally, or holiday away from the same caravan parks. They tend to be more restricted in what they have learned and have a more limited vocal library from which to draw upon.

So it’s an empathic response, similar to a mother softening her voice when talking to a child and conveying calm and joy. Or indeed hardening the consonants and shortening the vowels, raising the voice and lowering the pitch to exert control and authority.

...

Luckily for many of us, we live in a far more culturally diverse world than we did even 20 years ago. So when someone who hasn’t been aware of this comes across it, and to them it sounds contrived or fake, that’s an age and exposure thing. Our children we’ll see it as normal.

I’ve lived in a few different areas and my accent changes according in an attempt to be understood. Sometimes subconscious but sometimes deliberate.

It’s just communication.

Fake vs not fake? Grow up.

I've definitely had to change the odd word to make myself understood. My accent is originally soft Belfast, but I haven't said the word 'owl' in my real accent in quite some time! It just is not understood in SE England, even by well travelled people who generally can adjust their ear to understand my accent. "What? Oil? Aisle?" - it simply doesn't compute 😂. Anyone from NI who has lived abroad or over the water may have experienced the same. Everyone gets how, now, brown, cow, but owl absolutely flumoxes them

😂

I'm not sure it's that in this case. They've lived in two places in the UK their whole life, almost all of it in the place where their usual accent is the norm, whereas I've lived in different countries on various continents and in big cities and I don't do what you describing. And they've never spoken to us in that accent before in all the years we've known them. So I don't see who they'd be changing their voice to empathetically respond to in this case? The vocabulary wasn't different, just the accent was very pronounced.

I thought I was going nuts, I had no idea there was a term for this. At work events or on the phone for work I have a tv American accent. I'm not a weirdo!!

Sorry if this touched a nerve for you. I did say in the title that is not a very serious matter, I'm just curious.

The odd part for me that doesn't fit with your explanation was that they used the accent with me and my DP and we usually all have the same one, and so if anything, the accent change could make it harder to understand them, not easier.

Due to the area I live having a very mixed-up regional accent and the different accents of my mother and father, I have four accents that I slip in an out of, usually depending on which family members I've recently spoken to 😬 I hate it as I suspect people think I'm putting accents on to seem a certain way

I'm an Australian who's lived in the UK for nearly 20 years, with periods elsewhere as well. I've been an accent sponge since childhood - including unconscious code switching within different Australian accents - and I've had to learn to consciously not mirror the accents of the people I spend significant amounts of time with. When I'm relaxed, it just happens. Most people who meet me have no idea I'm Australian.

The people who do this - are you musical? Good at learning languages? I'm quite musical and have a good ear for accents when learning other languages and I've always wondered if this plays into my accent mirroring.

I code switch when I speak to my family. My kids think it's hilarious because I don't realise I'm doing it. I also do it when I talk to anyone Scottish but it's amore gradual change, one of my colleagues was very confused when she heard me have a conversation with another Scot at work.

I also have issues with my vowels, when I first moved to England I lived down south but now I live in northern England. My natural Scottish 'a' is between the long southern 'a' and short northern 'a' in length. So how I say e.g. 'castle' to an English person never feels natural to me.

I grew up in Scotland but moved to the South East as a teenager. I dropped my broad accent and adopted a much softer one, but when I visit Scotland I pick the accent up again, yet the Scots think I sound English.

I absolutely chameleon with who I speak to and imitate their accents. I don’t realise I do it most of the time. I go between broad Scots, posh Scots, a bit English RP, South African and American.

I speak to my Mum frequently and notice that despite living in Scotland she has picked up my new accent from speaking to me.

It's a known linguistic phenomenon and you might want to educate yourself.

www.unitedlanguagegroup.com/blog/linguistic-code-switching

Joining in with the non- GF and sensible conversation, I'm currently having to battle not to speak like Siobhan Finneran every time I open my mouth.

I'm unclear what I am being chastised for, but thank you for the link.

I think it's weird and while there's seemingly loads of people that do it (according to this thread) I've literally never met a person in real life who does this.

Have had friends in the past who put on an accent for whatever reason. Normally just for fun when chatting people up.

Note: I'm not talking about code switching, or those who flatten their accents in time from moving away from the area they grew up in.

I do this. Sometimes I realise it and sometimes I don't. It's generally involuntary.

I was born in one place with a very distinctive accent and moved to another place-with-a-distinctive accent when I was about 4. My parents have fairly neutral accents.

I sound fucking weird at the best of times, tbh. Well, that's what I've been told. No one has ever successfully placed me. (I'm 40)

I once read an article that mentioned Leonardo DiCaprio's accent in Gangs of New York. Apparently this was derided as being 'all over', but it was done deliberately as his character had grown up in two different places and it's normal for people's accents to wander a bit as a result.

Yeah I've not encountered this particular kind of switch before either. Lots of posters are saying they do the same thing as the friend though, and then describing something quite different that they do.

Couple of wines in and DP begins to sound like he never came off the moor.

Leave me down there for a fortnight and I take weeks to sound more like myself again - and I'll drop back into it whenever I'm talking about the place or somebody else is.

I can totally believe it wasn't intentional. I've got a mixed up mess of an accent. Part Yorkshire, bits of everywhere in London, occasionally slightly posh London. It switches depending on who I talk to (including being more London when talking to my Northern father) but there is no logic. Sometimes it switches based on mood and whether I've had a drink!

I 'copy' accents. It's not a conscious thing. I think it comes from living in a few different countries growing up. It helped me fit in if I could 'sound normal'.

I am married to an American and can confirm we both cringe on the occasions a person we are talking to slips into an American accent. Intentional or not, it’s embarrassing and vaguely irritating tbh.

There's a term for it, which is code switching. I'm originally from a part of the country with quite a distinctive regional accent though never had a particularly strong accent myself. I've moved round a lot though, mainly for work, and have found myself often adapting the cadence and some aspects of accent of where I've moved to. The theory is that it makes listeners more receptive to what you're saying...

Thinking of it, the fact I am beyond determined to not pick up the accent of the area I'm currently trapped in may be a factor in why it's taking me so long to settle. I've gone very RP instead as I absolutely don't want to end up sounding like I'm from round here....!!

Oh, and my original accent does get a bit stronger when I've been visiting family, though never particularly strong. It's all in the flattening of the vowels...

This would totally happen to me - I always mirrored accents, sounded American the second I got off the plane etc. I moved for my first graduate job and so my "formal" voice sounds much more like that area than the rest of my speech. Ordering in a restaurant is definitely the kind of place that would come out - speaking to strangers, trying to speak loudly and clearly so they could hear me. And then it would be back to normal when speaking to my friends.

Ah just seen you wouldn't describe it as code switching.... I guess it's a kind of verbal mirroring maybe then? And an attempt to communicate with the people you're with, whether it's conscious or not.

Mirroring who? None of us have that accent. Dp and I usually have the same accent as this friend.

My daughters are typical military kids with no accent and we now live in Scotland (where I'm from). My youngest interchanges her accent constantly.... At school she's completely Scottish, at home she's non accent but when her friends come round she speaks to me normally and then her friends in a Scottish accent..... Even when we're in the same room.

My eldest used to do it, now she's just embraced it.