During social and more so during employer/employee occasions there is one thing that makes me cringe with embarrassment – when white people talk to people of colour and actually change their accent to ‘approximate’ their idea of the accent of the person being spoken to.
I find this form of ‘talking down’ to another person most condescending and I squirm with indignant embarrassment whenever it occurs.
One feels that this ‘racist tone’ is used by the person speaking in order to further draw the lines of snobbishness and attempt to re-inforce the ‘I am better than you’ thoughts.
If you feel that your education is better than the person you are speaking to then please do not ‘talk down’ to them, rather encourage them to become part of your supposed ‘higher education’ and speak properly – the days of pigdin English are over, you may just find it empowering in the true sense of the word.
Do yourself a favour and listen to white people who belong to political parties across the board – even they are guilty of this cringe inducing behaviour.
Alan Straton
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Alan, find yourself in the company of an American and I guarantee you that you’ll start taking on a Yank accent. That said, I’m inclined to agree with you that old habits die hard.
Alan, what you are describing is actually a well documented, natural and fairly universal phenomenon. It is referred to by Psychologists as the “Chameleon Effect” – the natural tendency to imitate another person’s speech inflections and physical expressions.
Have ever been talking to someone then find yourself crossing your arms soon after they do? … same effect. Turns out it is actually a subconscious attempt to make the other party feel comfortable, to create rapport. I travel extensively and have witnessed it around the world, sometimes in very curious ways.
Rather, get concerned when you don’t see it happen. This is when the person has no desire to connect. There are a number of articles to be found online… fascinating stuff.
So, maybe I am the racist / xenophobe for feeling uncomfortable when someone speaks in pidgin English to an obviously well educated person of another race / culture?
And another one that irritates me is when the speaker raises the volume of his voice – almost as if shouting will make someone else understand.
And whilst I am on a roll here – WRITING ENTIRE SENTENCES IN CAPITALS IS AN ABSOLUTE NO NO. Those guys who submit business listings and articles to MyPE and write entirely in capitals make my blood boil.
TheKing 1 – funny you say that, I found myself speaking like an Ausie in order to try and get the Brits to understand me. My greatest frustration was speaking to the bank over the phone – my surname had the letter h in the centre – the teller kept on saying the 1st 2 letters, but could not understand the h, I then had to resort to cockney and pronounced it “heitch” – we then had a eureka moment 🙂