accents- turning it on and off

Depends on what kind. But to me an English accent is a big turn on.

I dont know about your coworker but sometimes its unintentional. I have a strong southern accent that Never changes, however, I've noticed that my accent is contagious to other people. For instance if they are from the south but have lost their accent, and they are talking to me long enough, they start having one. Happens every single time. I wish I could turn my on and off but for some reason I cannot do it.

I heard my Southern drawl Louisiana/ Alabama is more pronounced when I am being polite in a business setting, flirting:flowerforyou: , or around other Southerners. I still have words that keep me Southern aoundingand I refuse to drop Y'all from my vocabulary. I hate the word Soda and pop and still think it's a COKE. Once a Belle always a Belle. I have lived in Kansas a year and half. It's not something that happens intentionally it just happens when you get around people like yourself. You just fall right back into it naturally. :bigsmile: Yes sometimes I lay it on thick when flirting it drives men crazy up here :blushing:

Haha, you got that right, its always COKE.

lol it could be unintentional. My boyfriend is Australian and when he comes to visit me here in the States for a few months his accent starts to get less and less thick. I didn't notice until one day I was listening to a voicemail he left me when he was back home in Australia. He sounded like a completely different person! I think it just has to do with the fact that your brain adapts to how the people around you are speaking and you change subconsciously. I also have a childhood friend that moved to South Carolina after high school and now whenever I talk to him he has this Southern drawl going on and im like...Where did that come from?!?!

I can easily switch from English to French and have my French accent be pronounced as much as I want when I'm speaking English, it's just something you develop over time.

haha that's funny, I can do the same with my French and English accents as well It really messes with people

Sometimes, when people live elsewhere, they retain a milder form of their accent, but when they speak to someone from home, it kind of brings out a stronger accent. I doubt she is doing it on purpose.

Also, people from NZ are not "aussies". They are kiwis.

Yeah, us kiwis actually don't sound like Aussies. Just the same as Yanks and Canadians sound different.

Oops! I didn't read the original post well enough. I thought I read Australian. Apologies.

Its true, you can accidentally use other accents.
I was brought up in Southampton / England, but lived in a house with both a Southerner, a Mancunian and a Scouser.
People tell me i have a stronger accent than your average Southerner, but over the years my Mancunian mum has begun using a Southern accent. And i havent lived, or been near any Scousers for years.

However when im talking, if i get mad this scouser accent comes out of no where, its like i'v put it on..
And when i go up to Manchester to see my nan, after only a couple of days i begin talking like a mancunian, and you would assume i am from around there..

There are so many accents across England its unbelievable lol.
But either way it really annoys my friends, they think i put it on. When in actual i dont even realise.

So i would just assume she doesnt realise, or you could go up to her non-threateningly and say, did you know when your on the phone your accent changes lol.... And see how she reacts.

I just had this exact discussion with someone yesterday. Although, some Chicagoans have a slight accent, most of us don't unless they come from old south side neighborhoods where they talk like The Superfans. Parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota definitely have a detectable accent, but overall, we, in the Midwest, speak neutral. I was told they teach newscasters our "accent" because it's universal. Not sure if that's true, but it makes sense.

Having lived in the Chicago area for 13 years (and thankfully finally got out!), I'm going to beg to differ. I can hear a Chicago accent a mile off, and 95% of those from Chicago - or who have lived there for any length of time - have it. Maybe not as obnoxious as the Southsiders, but it's there nonetheless. After seven years away, I've lost any vestige of it but it took quite a long time to do so.

That "neutral" accent you're speaking of - the newscaster accent - comes from areas like Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Central Illinois, Indiana, etc. Certainly not from Chicago. And only in the larger towns in those states because once you drop off into the smaller towns you hear the country drawl. Other than the time I spent in Chicago, I've spent my entire life amid that "neutral" accent. I blame that particular accent on why I code-switch so easily. Heck, if I spend a day watching Jane Austen movies I end up with a very British accent. Talk to my mom (a Connecticut native), and I drop my Rs or add them in obnoxious places. My southern drawl rivals my cousin's who was born and raised in Louisiana. I hate it, but my husband finds it adorable so I rarely check it.

I'm sure some think I'm being fake, but I really don't care. Those kinds of people generally worry far too much about things I care far too little about to bother with them.

I'm from New Zealand and I found that even though I've never left the country depending on who I talk to would depend on the accent, for example I roll my Rs like the Americans do and say coffee like I'm from jersey but that's only because in certain parts of the south island that's what the accent sounds like

It's called code-switching, and sometimes it's not intentional. My family is a bunch of very loud hillbillies with a strong accent. When I'm around my aunts and uncles and cousins, I speak the way they do. When I'm with most other people, I speak with a standard American accent, no drawl. I used to have a good friend from Poland, and when we spent time together I would pick up her accent within an hour, completely unintentionally. I've started picking up pieces of the local accent where I live now, but it only comes out when I'm with local natives. It's not fake, it just happens.

^
This.

Sometimes coding-switching is intentional though and it's a valuable skill. People treat others differently based on the accents that they have. I do both. I turn it on and off at will, but sometimes accidentally when I'm around similar speakers as well.

At work or any professional setting, it can be worthwhile to drop a "less desirable" accent. aka. At a job interview one might code switch out of a southern accent, or at least tone it down because the stereotype of the accent is that the speaker is ignorant. But, get pulled over for speeding in a southern state and you might be better off playing up an existing southern accent so that the officer doesn't write you up for the same amount that they do Yankee tourists--basically using the accent as "hey, I'm one of you."

She might do it intentionally, especially on the phone because she knows how the listener stereotypes her different accents. It's a smart move in that case, and in fact people sometimes even pay big bucks for a tutor to teach them code switching if they feel their native accent is holding them back.

I say just try to get over it if it bothers you. She isn't hurting anything and in fact her code switching might be helping her create stronger relationships with those she speaks with.

My non-southern parents (from the center US "newscaster accent" part of the country) started to drill code-switching into me when I would come home from school drawling like the other southern kids, on the grounds that it would a valuable skill, and they were right.

In a southern school, any good high school English teacher will also touch on code-switching when they teach public speaking skills.