Sometimes I have a very Southern accent. Other times, it’s practically undetectable. And really it just depends on where I am and who I’m talking to.
But it doesn’t stop at minor alterations in dialect, and it’s not only me. We all change various things about ourselves to adapt to a slew of very different social contexts.
In essence, we’re adapting ourselves to please whomever we happen to be talking to. And while some remain critical of this social morphing, I think it’s a skill we need to welcome — at least as far as our verbalization.
These automatic, unconscious shifts in language are evident in how we alter our vocabularies when speaking to children. And generally, the way you speak to friends at a party is not the same as the way you speak to a professor at office hours.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is known for delivering speeches in the accent of his audience — so much so that the accent he took on in some of his 1980s speeches bore no resemblance to his recent ones.
Social psychologists title this copycat nature “the chameleon effect” and insist that it happens naturally and frequently because we feel a rapport with people who mimic not only our accents, but also our moves.
While on the P2P the other day, my casual conversation with the person next to me was interrupted with a phone call. She quickly switched over to a Jersey accent for that conversation, and then back to her neutral Chapel Hill tongue after it ended. Comforting the caller in her native accent was probably all that caller really needed. Her mimicry was unconscious, unnoticed and harmless.
It would typically be in our best interests to have pleasant relations with those around us. And if slight alterations in speech patterns can help, then why not use them?
Therapists, salespeople and tons of other professionals are sometimes advised to use mimicry to help build relations with others. Imitating vocabulary, speech, rhythm, accents, posture and gestures can help ease communication.
