Published on 12, July, 2020
Wondering if anyone else has this I'm English, lives in England, parents sound English but I sound South African or Austrailian depending on who you ask. Weird right? Is this something to do with the autism?
I'm from particular area in the UK and people there have an accent but apparently I don't have it...
I was brought up there for 18 years but I don't have the same accent as my family or the people I grew up with. It's not African or Australian though. My sister describes it as "posh"...
Interestingly, I like participating in musical theatre as a hobby and adopting an accent is absolutely no problem for me. I sometimes wonder if this comes from masking and mimicking others all my life to try to fit in socially as I find I also subconsciously change my accent depending on who I'm with... Again I believe this is a social inclusion thing that I've learned without realising that I do it. I've listened to others to try to work out what I'm supposed to say and do and part of what I've picked up is also the accent...
Yes, I am the same. I don't have the accent of where I am from (Probably a good thing, as it's not very nice!) and have variously been guessed at coming from the West Country, Yorkshire and a few others. I pick up accents from the people around me, if I like them. It's not just accent either - if I am talking to someone who is not English, I pick up the speech patterns/rhythm of their speech. I have been doing this since I was a child. I remember talking to a kid from abroad at school and picking up the rhythm and for about 4 days afterwards people I'd just met asking me if I was from somewhere else "because you're not English, are you". I speak fluent French and the same thing happens when I switch back to English. The rhythm of French sticks around for a bit afterwards.
I think it's mimicking the people around you to fit in. We subconsciously try to sound like the people around us. I am sure this is ASD related as I can't do any of the accents that I purportedly adopt if someone says to me "do a West Country accent". Then my ability to copy it is laughably bad. I think it's a much more subconscious thing.