Re: CHAT: This or that that.

As I understand it this type of accent mimicking (called phonetic
convergence by linguists) is not specific to people who are
linguistically-oriented. There is some sociolinguistics research
being done in this area. Now if I can only dig up a reference....
Well, there's a PDF by Jennifer Pardo, entitled "on phonetic
convergence in conversation interactions" here:

http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/pardo2006.pdf

Hope that helps/is of interest.

Best,

~ Daniel

On Feb 14, 2007, at 4:50 PM, Remi Villatel wrote:

> On Wednesday 14 February 2007 19:04, Mia Soderquist wrote:
>
>>> Now, I'm in a good company! I don't even realise that - my wife ofen
>>> tells me that I immediately start imitating accent of my
>>> interlocutor!
>>
>> I do the same thing. Sometimes I catch myself and try to stop,
>> particularly if I am starting to echo regional accents in American
>> English, my native language. I don't want people to think I am
>> making fun
> 	[---CUT---]
>
> Count me in! Mimicking accents is a second nature for me too.
>
> I didn't realize until I encountered the strongest french accent: The
> southern accent. After a week, I was talking like an "autochthon", I
> couldn't help it and didn't even notice the southern accent any
> more. Since
> I never felt that my northern usual companions had any peculiar
> accent, I
> can't remember if they "caught" the southern accent too or not.
> They made
> no remarks about my accent, I was the one doing them.
>
>> I wonder if this is a habit peculiar to the more linguistically-
>> oriented
>> mind, or if it is just something that everyone does to a degree.
>
> Good question... but I think that Isaac already gave us the answer.
> If his
> wife --not as much linguistically-oriented as us, I guess--
> noticed, it
> must mean that it is something specific to "us".
>
> --
> ==================
> Remi Villatel
> maxilys_@_tele2.fr
> ==================