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Spyral
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11 Sep 2010, 8:02 pm

I don't know if this is the right forum to ask this, but does anyone else ever mimic other people's accents or vocal cadences? I have a professor from London with a distinct British accent and after that class, I find myself mimicking her accent. I realize it's probably a bad thing to do so I work really hard not to, but in my head I still say things in that accent. (Oh yeah, I talk to myself in my head a LOT). When I'm with other friends sometimes I notice copying their accents and vocal cadences.

I suspect this has something to do with trying to pick up on social cues and mimicking other people's social behaviors, but I'm new to this so I'm not sure.


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puddingmouse
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11 Sep 2010, 8:07 pm

Yes. I wish I didn't. I must sound like I'm making fun of people or being fake.

I've copied these accents because people I liked had them: Russian, Portugese, Cockney, Yorkshire, Welsh, and Japanese. I stop myself as soon as I realise I'm doing it. :oops:



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11 Sep 2010, 8:12 pm

Ditto here. I did it all the time as a kid. I don't speak with a Texan accent because I learned the bland California accent of all the actors on TV. Later in school I had a perfect Russian accent. A Russian instructor asked if I had a musical ear, but I had never picked up an instrument before. Later, my Russian accent changed to match those of the other students I spoke with outside class. I really couldn't help it, but I think I've largely grown out of it.



auntblabby
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11 Sep 2010, 8:18 pm

i wish i had that particular social gift, but i don't. i suspect that people on the spectrum who have that particular ability are very high-functioning indeed.



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11 Sep 2010, 8:20 pm

I do that sometimes. I don't think anyone has taken offense to it though. :D



puddingmouse
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11 Sep 2010, 8:33 pm

auntblabby wrote:
i wish i had that particular social gift, but i don't. i suspect that people on the spectrum who have that particular ability are very high-functioning indeed.


I wouldn't call it an ability. I do it involuntarily when I've been spending a lot of time with someone. I can't keep that accent when that person isn't around or I don't see them often anymore.



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11 Sep 2010, 9:27 pm

When I do it I get really annoyed with myself but I find that when I'm around certain people it just happens. It's not a bad thing because it helps me fit in better than I would with out doing it but I feel like I have no actual self sometimes, I feel like a Camelion. Even though I know the gist of my behavioral patterns I get confused when I mimic other people's because the mimicking itself is a part of my true self.



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11 Sep 2010, 10:20 pm

I have a hard time mimicking accents, due to having one of my own.


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MrXxx
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11 Sep 2010, 10:27 pm

Used to, and didn't even realize it.

Back in the Seventies and Eighties, I listened to a ton of Southern Rock (I'm a life-long New-Englander ~ and NO, not of the one's who drop or draw out their R's (Caa, instead of Car), but of the sort that over pronounce R's, drop T's at then ends of words (Vermo' instead of Vermont) and say "Ceeow" instead of "Cow.")

Some guy from Connecticut came to work with me at one point and asked me if I was from South Carolina. I told him I wasn't, so he started naming other Southern states. I finally told him, "Look, I grew up here. I've lived here all of my life. I've been to NC once in my entire life. Why do you think I'm from the South? He told me I had a Southern accent.

When I expressed befuddlement at this everyone in the lunch room, who knew I wasn't from the South, told me he was right, and they had always wondered why. Southern Rock is the only reason I can come up with. Guess I adopted the accents I heard.


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11 Sep 2010, 10:40 pm

Oh, it is so embarrassing when I spontaneously mimic someone. When I was doing activist work in California, I manage to pick up a Mexican accent. People thought I was Mexican! 8O :oops:


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ScottyN
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11 Sep 2010, 10:43 pm

I am a gifted verbal mimic, and used to mimic peoples accents all the time. I would just do it spontaneously. I also mimic birds and other animals. When I found out it was a trait for some on the spectrum, it kind of disturbed me. This is something I instinctively done all my life, and now I see it is yet another thing that makes me different. Oh well.



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11 Sep 2010, 10:45 pm

I do this inadvertantly all the time. Much to my wifes horror. :oops:

The doctor that diagnosed my son and I had an accent of some sort (Scottish? Irish?). It was very hard not to copy him.



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11 Sep 2010, 11:35 pm

Yeh. I have difficulty sometimes not copying people's accents. As long as I concentrate a little on 'being myself' I can usually avoid it.

It's kind of good to read about other people's experiences with it. It makes me feel as though I'm not nearly so weird.

FJP that is funny about the doctor. My son's new teacher is Irish and I've already made a mental note to not inadvertantly copy her. :)


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necroluciferia
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12 Sep 2010, 7:00 am

Yes I have always had this problem. Sometimes it's very embarrassing as when I realise I am doing it I worry that people think I'm taking the piss out of them. Certain accents I pick on more than others though - if I really hate someones accent I think I work harder not to pick it up than ones that I like. When I was younger I was also fascinated by regional accents, I used to watch certain characters on the TV and impersonate them and have always been very skilled at impersonations. I also went through a phase when I spoke in a completely different accent all the time, which has kind of left a mark as if I'm around anyone with that accent it instantly comes back out in me.



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12 Sep 2010, 7:16 am

Yeah, in the summers when I was a kid I'd have to visit relatives in the deep south (I grew up in the west) and it would take conscious effort to try not to do that (and I wasn't always very successful at it). And on a visit to London one time the same thing.

Oddly, my mother has a Japanese accent, but I've never had problems with adopting that. It's probably because her accent doesn't sound like an accent to me; I only realized she had one as a kid when someone said, "I can't understand half of what she says."



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12 Sep 2010, 7:25 am

Yes, I do that very often. I think I'm not very good at it though, so maybe people don't notice it much. At least nobody has ever commented on it.