Unexpected Side Effects of International Media Obsession

Once I spent several months calling takeout “takeaway.” It wasn’t an affectation, nor did I pepper the rest of my vocabulary with British slang (well, there was one “car park” incident). For some reason my initial impulse, when discussing food that one picks up from a restaurant and takes to eat at one’s home, was to call it takeaway.

The purpose of this article is to examine that reason. I’m not a socio-linguist, so I’m not going to be able to make a serious study of it. What I want to do is to play with the idea of what happens when someone watches a ton of foreign media (as most of us do here at With An Accent).

We all know that cultural immersion can have its effect on one’s speech, both in the terms one uses and in one’s accent. Spend enough time in a foreign country and you’ll start to use their language. Maybe you’ll start dreaming in Spanish or suddenly find yourself ranting about your bad day in German (as a friend of mine, studying abroad in Germany, once did; she felt fluent for the first time that day). Even if you’re staying in a country that shares your own language, you might find their slang words replacing your own, or their accent starting to rub off on yours.

It’s happened to me: I’m originally from Philadelphia, and we call “subs” (or “grinders,” or whatever) “hoagies” there. In college everyone called them subs, so I started to, to my Philadelphian chagrin. I think media immersion can have the same effect. My “takeaway” experience proves it. I wasn’t running around intentionally trying to talk like I was from the U.K., I just happened to be reading and watching a lot of British media, and it rubbed off for a little while.

Warning: Can cause readers to unintentionally talk like a Beatle for a few hours.

It’s just funny that I’d pick up British words when I’m not actually living in the U.K., or living with anyone who’s from there. That’s what I’m trying to point out here: if you read, watch, or listen to enough media from another country, in some ways you are effectively surrounded by that culture.

Of course the effect is smaller. One of my best friends is a fan of epistolary novels. She and I constantly email back and forth, sometimes several times a day. I can always tell when she’s reading her epistle books, because her emails suddenly take a more formal tone, as if she’s emulating the style that she’s currently reading. Her writing sounds like she’s a character out of one of her books. It’s not a very conscious decision on her part. It’s just that when she’s absorbed in such books the style rubs off in her own writing, particularly when she’s also composing a letter of sorts.

The “takeaway” and “car park” incidents aren’t my only personal experiences with such behavior. I don’t even want to think about how goofy I sounded after reading George Harrison’s autobiography. I definitely got a few raised eyebrows from my boyfriend and from my then-roommate (also the girl who lived in Germany).

I know you might not believe me, but I really wasn’t trying to sound like I’m from 1960s Liverpool. George is just my favorite Beatle and I was really into his story. Because I barely put down the book in the day it took me to read it, I’m sure I only spoke like that for a couple hours. The point stands: if you get enough into a piece of media it can have an effect.

There’s an argument to be made that, although I don’t make a conscious decision to adapt British jargon, I am an Anglophile. There might be a part of me somewhere that enjoys incorporating British slang into my own vocabulary. That could be true, or at least could explain some of what’s going on. Certainly my high exposure to British media is due to my Anglophilia, and I do think the accent sounds cool, so maybe there’s a part of my subconscious cheering me on.

That theory hits a roadblock when I consider kdramas. I’m obsessed with them; I’ve watched tons since first discovering them, and I often finish an entire 16- or 20-episode series in a matter of days. Obviously, I’m very immersed in kdramas.

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Modje Taavon

Posted September 6, 2012 at 7:09 PM

It’s funny you should mention this–one of my best friends moved to the States from Iran when she was about 13; she learned English pretty quickly, but she still has a tiny bit of an accent. (Really, it’s negligible.) Being the wonderful friend I am, I got her to start watching Coupling and then added some ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ to the mix. Within a week, I noticed she started speaking with what I can only call British syntax and intonations. It was really interesting. She didn’t pick up any slang, but she did pick up the way Brits speak.

I know when I go to Britain or Germany to visit family, my accent will shift slightly, and it really doesn’t take long for that to happen. My linguistic anthro professor says it has something to do with one’s level of contentedness. If a person is happy or content in their surroundings, they are more inclined to pick up the accent and conversely, if they’re unhappy, they’re more likely to hold on to their original accent. I guess it’s the same with letting your accent go or picking up lingo or slang.

Fascinating stuff. 🙂


Angela

Posted September 7, 2012 at 5:29 AM

That is so fascinating. So I wonder if she was more susceptible to it because English wasn’t her first language, even if she didn’t really speak it with an accent. I have a friend from the Ukraine who moved here when she was around the same age as your friend, and her American accent is flawless. But I should ask her about it, she’d be fascinated too, I think.

Your experiences are fascinating as well. And you’ve got the academic perspective on it that I don’t, which is wonderful. That makes a lot of sense, though I’d have never put that together on my own. We’re enjoying our media, we are happy when we’re watching it, so it has a physical effect, even of it’s not conscious.

I could talk about this for ages. Thank you so much for the insight! That’s so cool.

John McDermott

Posted September 7, 2012 at 12:29 AM

I have a tendency to pick up on accents rather quickly. It’s not a conscious thing, but I am conscious that I am doing it. I recently read that people do it as a means of understanding. i.e., I don’t understand you with a Southern drawl, but if I affect one then not only do you understand me better, but somehow I can makes sense of what you’re saying. Strange I know.

As far as including bits of slang or cultural gestures I can attest to also doing the same. Watching several Japanese Anime, I’m looking at you Evangelion, in high school I noticed myself giving the “peace” sign, while winking. And with watching BBC television almost constantly I too will slip British slang into my everyday.

What I find the most helpful is that by submersing myself into other cultural media it makes my non-American friends more, I guess, relaxed. I’m not constantly pointing out when they something in English/American wrong or do something an American isn’t accustomed to, but I take it in stride. As with my Scottish friend, I’m not constantly asking her what she means by “the boot of the car”, nor do I have a hard time understanding her when she says the word “water” (she really hates saying that word around Americans).

Ultimately, I think it behooves us to have a broader media pallet, if it were. It opens the mind, clears up language barriers, and generally makes the world that much more interesting.


Angela

Posted September 7, 2012 at 5:35 AM

That is interesting. My friend once had a temp job with a strong phone-based element. One person who was in the office had a Southern drawl, so it rubbed off a bit one time she was on the phone. She found that people were generally more polite and helpful to her if she used the accent – so she kept on using it when answering the phone. I wonder if it’s related to what you’re talking about. Also I wonder if there would be a way for us to make a real study of this, because it would be so fascinating.

They do the peace sign in Korean stuff too! Only not quite as much as in anime. It got really big in Japan, and so it spread to Korea; but anytime a character is having a picture taken of them they do the peace sign, but not the wink. I watched a lot of anime in college, on top of playing a ton of jrpg’s on the playstation, so I really wouldn’t be surprised if something rubbed off then as well that I’m not remembering.

I’ve found that I think I have a few Brit phrases that have stuck, but they’re not slang. I overuse the word “bit,” and I say “proper” as well, like to refer to something that is the most real or the most fitting.

Oh, I didn’t think of that side effect: you’ll fit in better in other countries, or help people from other countries feel more welcome. I agree with you on the broader media pallet thing: between Netflix and kdramas on hulu I think my general media consumption is about 50% American and 50% not-American. Also, your Scottish friend can come say “water” around me, because I pronounce it the Philly way (“wudder,”) and get crap for it all the time, so I won’t point her out or judge.