Accommodating my accommodation anxiety
In a recent episode of the excellent podcast “Lingthusiasm,” linguist Gretchen McCulloch and Claire Gawne (who speak Canadian English and Australian English, respectively), discuss linguistic accommodation – the phenomenon by which one adjusts their linguistic tics while speaking with someone who uses a different accent or dialect – as an important tool of social connection.
Adjusting one’s speech, either through lexical or accent convergence, can help the speaker feel closer to the listener, in addition to the practical benefit of being easier to understand. For example, when I visit the UK, I’ll make the lexical change of saying “do the washing up” instead of “wash the dishes.”
On the flip side, speakers may also use linguistic divergence to emphasize key differences between the speaker and listener – for example, a teacher speaking to a group of students. In both linguistic convergence and divergence, language is used as a tool to strengthen one’s sense of self and identity.
But as with anything related to identity and how one presents oneself, there can come a sense of self-consciousness. Something I’ve noticed in myself is what I can only describe as “linguistic accommodation anxiety” – the fear of sounding like I’m “trying too hard,” or even pandering in my conversations with someone using a different dialect.
In “Lingthusiasm,” McCulloch indicates experiencing a variation of the same thing, saying that she doesn’t want to seem like she is “parodying” the accent of her conversation partner. Her experience with linguistic accommodation anxiety appears to be more about making the person she is talking to feel comfortable, while mine is more self-reflective – worrying about being seen as a fraud.
I saw my fears play out in real life when the American actress Meghan Markle married the UK’s Prince Harry. The now-Duchess was widely questioned and mocked on social media over a viral clip showing her with an apparent “British accent.” In a January 2019 video, Markle can be heard asking an admirer: “Did you make that for us?” using an intonation found often in British English.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by HELLO! US (@hellomagus) on Jan 14, 2019 at 6:27am PST
Linguists who analyzed Markle’s voice agreed that no, she did not suddenly develop an accent, but was instead displaying signs of linguistic accommodation. University of Toronto linguistics professor Dr. Marisa Brook told the BBC that Markle has likely developed an “English-aristocratic” style of speaking for her interactions with the public when representing the Royal Family.
"These are the situations where people might be judging her in public instantly, where it really benefits her to sound British and aristocratic,” Brook said.
On this side of the Atlantic, progressive firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was recently criticized by conservatives who accused her of using “verbal blackface” when speaking to an audience at the National Action Network. Ocasio-Cortez, or “AOC” as she is known colloquially, is a Latina woman who was raised in and represents one of New York’s most multicultural areas. She defended herself emphatically from the criticism, tweeting: “I am from the Bronx. I act & talk like it.”
Author and Columbia University linguistics professor Dr. John McWhorter wrote a thorough defense of AOC’s code-switching for The Atlantic, and also pointed out the breadth of traditionally-black linguistic features in other US dialects.
“Ocasio-Cortez, as a Latina, was not using a dialect foreign to her experience. She grew up around it; it would be surprising if she did not have it in her repertoire to some extent,” McWhorter writes. “Anyone who would riposte that she isn’t from the black Bronx in particular would miss that Black English stopped being a black-exclusive dialect in the Bronx decades ago.”
Between the controversy over Markle and AOC’s “accents” and the knowledge that my friends would likely tease me (without malice, but embarrassing all the same) if I came home from a few months in the UK speaking with any sign of a British lilt, I often feel hyper-conscious of what is a socially acceptable level of linguistic accommodation.
This fear of being seen as a fraud is so strong that I hear myself compensating in the other direction, and consciously or subconsciously emphasizing my Wisconsin accent: drawing out my vowels, using a notably hard “R,” and even over-using phrases that normally come out only sparingly.
While I’m less self-conscious about lexical accommodation through the use of British English phrases, I am aware of myself trying harder to steer clear of accent changes. And is this, in itself, a type of linguistic accommodation that happens to be more self-serving?
Dr. Marisa Brook’s comments on Meghan Markle to the BBC provide some reassurance: "If it's conscious, I don't think it makes her manipulative, or a poser or anything," she says of Markle. “She's someone who's very off-beat from those who usually join the Royal Family - it makes a lot of sense. It's not that she is changing who she is. It's like she's changing how she dresses - it's like an extremely fancy outfit.”
As I prepare to move to the UK for graduate school and to possibly “settle down,” many friends have asked if I’m going to “have a British accent” in a couple of years. I do notice myself picking up words and idioms here and there (the American English equivalent for “a spanner in the works” is wholly inadequate, and “quite” is quite a helpful qualifier), but I wonder if my “accommodation anxiety” will slowly dissipate, or if it is a permanent hurdle for truly fitting in to life in London.
