People 'doing' your accent

[Topofthemornintoya]

If you live outside Ireland, do people do your accent after you speak?

I live abroad and work with expats from many English speaking countries. From time to time, I will be speaking and the other, non Irish, person will repeat what I said in my accent. Maybe I'll say 'do you know if there's paper in the photocopier?' And someone will imitate me and put on my accent saying 'paper in the photocopier!' like it's hilarious.

I never know how to respond because my first thought is 'oh, you've noticed I speak differently to you and you think its comical. Right' but I never really know how to articulate this. I always feel like our conversation is pretty much over when this happens. I can't explain why.

It never feels like a compliment and I normally respond with blank silence as I don't know how I'm supposed to say. The other person will then note the lead balloon and say 'ooh I just love your accent!'.

I spoke to another expat (but not Irish) friend about this. She hasn't done it to me but said that everyone has an accent and a bit of teasing about accents is ok and nobody means any harm.

I couldn't put my finger on why it annoyed me so much. It used to happen a lot when I lived in Emlngland and it always felt very 'othering' so maybe I am overreacting and it's my issue.

Does it happen to you and do you mind? Am I being very over sensitive? It always makes me feel self conscious. As I said, I've worked with a lot of people from other countries. Scottish, Welsh, English, Kiwis, Australians, Americans, Canadians, Indian people and people from African countries. I would never dream of parroting something back to them in their accent because I found it funny. It's rude, isn't it? What do you think?

You might want to change that username

Haha I changed to that username exactly because that's the kind of thing people have said to me! Somebody said to me yesterday that driving in Ireland must be really easy because its just all country roads with sheep. People just come out with the most ignorant things!

It happens to everyone I think.

Yes I am a northerner that has lived in the south and it happened to me loads.
The irish accent is particularly distinct, lovely and musical sounding so I think people can’t help themselves.

I'm not Irish but I get it fairly often, There's a very ordinary word that people repeat it with a mock accent when I say it. It's a word that is hard to avoid, and as far as I know has only one pronunciation.
Not the word but say it was 'Film' and when I say it some smartarse says 'Fill Em'.
I ask them why they repeated it, and that if it happens again I will be reported to HR.

It's xenophobia. The people who do it are usually monoglot english.

My accent is usually SE England bc I live here now but in Ireland it comes out slightly Antrim. If some people ask me where I'm from, they do often say things like "top o' the morning". They are often people with Irish heritage themselves and they are pleased and want to be friendly. Joshing around with accents in this context is genuine affection, they really do love the accents.

I joined the air force when I was 17. I'm Welsh and people were always making fun of my accent, saying things like "there's nice"
I was so naive I didn't know that English people didn't say that. So I changed my accent very quickly to be neutral 😒
People can be so ignorant, I feel for you!

I know this is Craicnet but I could relate to your post.

I have an Australian accent and British people often imitate it (nobody Irish has ever done so FWIW).

It’s a pain in the arse; I’m generally trying to communicate something and the response I get more or less means “You sound different to me and I think you sound funny!”, when I’m talking about something else entirely. I assume they would rather die than say something out of the blue about my skin colour, so why do it with my accent? So I hear you!

Do you mean Southerners repeat your Northern Irish accent?

Yes it feels a bit like pointing and laughing.

I'm geordie and it happens with most things I say as well.
Mainly things like rollercoaster, book, cook etc

I hate it

When you're out of Newcastle? How rude!

I'm from the West Midlands and it happens all the time.

Birminum seems to be a favourite. Even thought I'm not from there and even if I was... that's not how they say it 🙄

I'm not Irish but from a part of the Midlands known as the Black Country. I'm not particularly broad but I've had it for years if I say where I'm from or they catch my accent - very often shouting DUD-LAAAAAAY at me.

I'm involved in a sport that is typically 'posh' and lots of people speak in very plummy tones. Never really had much problem - I went to a lunch even once and there was a man on our table who repeated everything I said in my accent hooting with laughter - I was so embarrassed (so were other people for me I think) and I just stopped talking and ate my lunch. It still upsets me now.

I'm afraid I don't see the funny side. Luckily I work in the thick of the Black Country folk now but I think I would probably say something now. Obviously it's not discriminatory for me being from middle England but I do find it a form of bullying.

Yep. Northerner who lived in the south - constant bus/bath/grass comments

I'm a northern bird. Not particularly broad. Lived in the Midlands since the 80s. People still, occasionally will 'do' the accent. Badly. It's taking the wee, pure and simple. I'd like to have a comeback too. It's really beyond rude. I always find they go down in my estimation after, and wouldn't want to see someone unnecessarily who thinks this is ok

I used to work somewhere where someone would shout 'potato'! every time one of the Irish staff went into the staffroom. I think one of my fellow Irish colleagues put him in his place. I just don't know how people think this is ok?

I have phonetic accommodation but do try to suppress it as I understand it can cause offence. Does it help to know that
when mutual intellgibility is not an issue, accomodation mainly occurs when speakers like each other or want to appear likeable?

Canadian here. I work a lot in the Deep South USA. People often laugh about my accent and say I’m « one step away from aboot », whatever that means. For me it depends on who it is and what their tone sounds like. Sometimes I find it awkward and borderline embarrassing, but mostly I can see the humour and find that people are just finding away to connect. Sometimes I’ll joke back in a mock Texan accent « well how would y’all say it? » and that tends to go down surprisingly well. 🤷‍♀️

I lived in England for 25 years and got it a lot, almost never in my London years, but often when living elsewhere, generally from the type of white monoglot Little Englander who genuinely believed they themselves had ‘no accent’ either because they spoke “modern RP’ or because they’d never stirred more than ten miles from their birthplace and thought everyone talked like them.

Sometimes in the most mind-blowingly inappropriate situations — I was once godmother to a friend’s baby, and DH (also Irish, and the godfather) had to miss the baptism. The proxy who spoke DH’s vows at an extremely formal ceremony in a cathedral thought it would be funny to say them in a stage-Oirish accent and was apparently baffled I didn’t laugh along. Another time I was actually being given an award at a city hall ceremony and the mayor, who had a strong regional accent, said at the beginning of her speech, ‘I’m going try to do this in brogue!’

I think there’s a big difference between obviously mutual friendly teasing (an Armagh friend and I get great enjoyment from comparing slang and accents), and deliberate ‘othering’.

Yup, Northener here. Doesn't bother me though.

It did get a bit weird for a while when 'Daphne from Frasier' passed for a generic Northern England accent in America. So my accent was repeated back to me with a totally different one.

I spent a whole drunken evening with my antipodean flatmates trying to do Northern, that was fun. I gave as good as I got.

I once had an Irish person talk in a cod-Australian accent in my presence. (I am Australian.)

To be fair, he didn’t sound very Irish, and I don’t sound very Australian, and he wasn’t actually mimicking me, per se.

Anyway, I mentioned it to him, and he apologised, and fully empathised, because of his own experiences with people doing similar to him.

You are right - it’s a shitty thing to do.

I think it happens a lot to Irish people for two reasons.

1. Because the Irish accent is generally considered beautiful. I don't think people generally copy it to take the piss, but because they genuinely love the accent.

1. Because it's really easy to do a stereotypical Irish accent.

My Mum is from Birmingham and my Dad is Welsh, two other accents that get copied by people, but neither get copied as much as the Irish one, because they each only fulfil one of the criteria.

The Brummie accent isn't considered a 'nice' accent, so the people copying it tend to be taking the piss. Polite people don't do this, so you only get the arseholes.

Welsh on the other hand is considered pleasant to hear, but it's really easy to completely fail to do a good impression of it, which makes you look a plonker.

The Irish accent is the only one I can think of across the UK and Ireland that has both of the above qualities. The Jamaican accent is probably another example, but you start doing a stereotypical Jamaican accent in the UK and you'll start getting accusations of racism thrown at you.

I've only had it from occasionally English people in England. Or Irish Americans. The Irish Americans think are being cute, the English one were generally attempting to reinforce stereotypes.
Seen it done to Scottish and Welsh people with strong accents too. And of course the odd racist who can't mention an Indian or Chinese anything without putting on a voice.

Used to work with an Irish girl who constantly took the piss out of another colleague's Yorkshire accent. I don't know how much it pissed him off but I found it really rude, bullying and tedious. I think it's an individual person thing but that must be very annoying indeed if several people do it to you.