Accent Imitation

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, is this Martha?

This is Martha. Who’s this?

This is Sarah. Actually, I happen to be in Philadelphia at the moment, but I live in Santa Fe.

Oh, okay.

So, yeah.

You just happen to be in Philadelphia. Okay.

Let’s get you all worked up, Sarah.

So I have a kind of a new boss, and she was asking me to relate an incident with my fellow employee.

And my fellow employee basically stood up and said, I’m not going to listen to you.

And I’ll let you do the work and then present me with a presentation later.

And I was like, okay.

And so when I related the story, I actually related it and used his accent.

And I didn’t even realize that I was doing it.

And she got a little bit upset and said I was making fun of my coworker.

And I said, no, I’m not doing that at all.

And I even called my former boss and he said, oh, yeah, that’s just one of your, you know, weird habits that you have.

And I said, so it’s pretty normal then?

And he said, well, I’ve learned to realize that it’s not much of anything.

And that you do when you say things verbatim.

And I was a county director at a welfare office for 10 years, so I would have to repeat conversations as best I could.

And I would always do that, apparently.

So why do I do that?

But apparently it’s a problem.

So it’s getting you in trouble?

Do people think that you’re making fun of the people that you’re imitating?

My fairly young boss who lacks humor because she’s not been a boss for very long.

She doesn’t understand management, I don’t think.

Oh, now.

Don’t be ageist.

She may have less humor as time goes on.

Let’s focus on you for a minute, though, and focus on the accent of the man that you were imitating.

What is his accent?

Where is he from?

He’s from Nigeria.

Okay.

-huh.

So to zero in on this question here, so Martha already kind of picked out the one thing that I was going to pay attention to, which is you’re getting in trouble for this.

And in the boss-employee relationship, if the boss says something is a problem, it’s a problem.

Yes.

And so just on that pure kind of human dynamics alone, you need to look at this.

Now, something that goes on your credit side of your ledger, really, is that everyone does this to a degree.

This is the way we form group cohesion.

We do a certain kind of assimilation and mimicry, not just of accents and voices and tone, but the body posture as well and facial expressions.

I was going to say, gestures.

Yeah, the way we tilt our heads, the way we move our hands.

Yeah, we mimic people.

We mimic.

But if it’s done to an extreme, it can be seen as condescending and even offensive, particularly if the person is very different from you.

Or it can even be seen as co-opting.

Yeah, I was going to say.

Borrowing culture that you’re not entitled to.

Would you be comfortable doing it if that guy were in the room?

I probably would do it.

See, that’s how much I don’t realize I do it.

Oh.

My boyfriend’s from Mexico, so my son gets very upset with me because he can always tell me.

He says, oh, I guess your boyfriend was over recently.

And I’m like, why do you say that?

And he says, because your syntax is horrible right now.

Clearly, I pick up and mimic other people.

And if I was talking to my boyfriend that lens, I’ll end up, I guess, being sympathetic to his understanding of English.

And I probably should really force myself to speak better English, so he learns better English, but sometimes just easier and faster and more expedient to do it his way.

What you’re looking at here is a really interesting workplace dynamic.

The age of your boss doesn’t matter here.

The way that you are being perceived matters the most.

And one of the things that Martha and I often come down to is, like, if what you’re doing is getting in the way of good communication, then you need to look at it and fix it.

And it sounds like that’s what’s happening here.

Right.

And I’ve really made an effort.

Like when I related it to you, I didn’t use the accent.

I was like, I’m not going to continue to do that because I’m going to try to really consciously try not to do that as much as I can.

I’ve got a couple strategies for you that I think might help.

One is don’t repeat the words verbatim.

Oh, that’s a good idea.

Just paraphrase, really.

Summarize.

Just come up with the not.

And then you won’t naturally as easily fall into the tendency to imitate their cadence and so forth.

The other thing is, and I’ve talked about this in the show before, try the rubber band trick.

Put a rubber band on your wrist, and when you find yourself doing this, snap that rubber band, and it stings just enough that it will distract you from your behavior and remind you, oh, yeah, the rubber band says I’m not supposed to do this.

That’s excellent.

I’m going to do it.

It’s a small, dumb thing.

It can work for a variety of personal tics and behaviors.

Yeah, I find that really interesting because I think we’re talking about the difference between imitating somebody and, as you said, telling a story about paraphrasing it.

I think that’s a really good way to approach it, is just paraphrase without trying to render the situation in real time.

Right. It’s not a performance.

Exactly.

It’s a report.

Exactly.

But you’re saying you absorb some of the ticks anyway.

I will try hard not to do that.

I don’t want to be in trouble at work.

It’s just not five years from retirement.

That’s not worth it.

Sarah, it sounds like you’re in a really good mood about this, which I love.

And it sounds like you know what’s up.

And it sounds like when you call us again in the future, you’re going to have something new to report.

And she’ll probably sound like us.

Sarah.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Our pleasure.

Thanks a lot.

Glad to have you on the show.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye, Sarah.

Bye-bye.

If you want more information about this, everyone, I’m talking to the listeners.

Google communication accommodation theory.

And it’s a fancy word for basically we as humans because we’re a gregarious species.

Yeah.

Tend to try to sound like the rest of the group.

This is a really natural thing that she’s doing, but she’s taking it almost to, like, the actor’s level of imitation, it sounds like.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I’m sure it’s a gift in some ways.

Right, or maybe she’s a great, like, party mimic, like when she does, like, the funny grandpa jokes or whatever.

Maybe it comes out and it’s wonderful, but it sounds like in the workplace it’s not really the place.

That’s a very good distinction.

Yeah.

We’d love to hear your question about language, so call us, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email.

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