Some might remember how former England coach Steve McLaren developed a Dutch sounding accent when he moved to the Netherlands to manage FC Twente, or how Madonna suddenly began speaking with a British accent during her marriage to Guy Ritchie. Professor of Sociolinguistics at UCD Vera Regan joined RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne to talk about why it is some people pick up accents really quickly. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full above).
From The Guardian, Ronan O'Gara delivers a pep talk to the La Rochelle players that blends French with English swearing, graced with a Cork accent
Referring to a clip of McClaren at a press conference some years ago, Regan explains: "There are two things going on here, number one, he doesn't speak Dutch so he's going to have to use English, but he needs to get on with the people he's talking to. So what he's doing is he's accommodating his speech. First of all he's altering his speech in English to make himself sound more like the Dutch people that he's talking to, that's really important for his team work."
Another case is former player and football manager Joey Barton from Merseyside in north west England, who had a really strong Scouse accent but developed an "extraordinary" French accent when he was on loan to Olympique de Marseille in 2012.
From Sky Sports Soccer AM, Joey Barton discusses his "French" accent
So what's the story with Barton's French lilt? "Really what he's doing is he wants to get the guys to like him. He has the journalists on one hand, he has the fans, so he's going to try and align himself with the way they talk. So he's picking out bits of what he thinks sounds French - his vowels are purer than our vowels in English, he uses easier words, he has no contractions. He says 'we do not know about this' instead of 'we don't know' and he leaves out the grammar."
In a nutshell, he's trying to make it easier for the person to understand what he's saying and McLaren does the same thing, says Regan. She calls it like "a foreigner talk"."That's a well recognised thing." It's like when we might find ourselves speaking loudly or slowly or using simple words or leaving out "the grammatical bits" so someone can understand our English. "Because all we need is the meaning. We don't need to actually have all these extra bits."
From RTÉ Brainstorm, what do our accents say about us?
There are reasons why this works
One, it's simpler. Barton has a very strong north of England accent and the people listening to him have learned English in a French lycée - school - so they're learning standard English. "There could be quite a gap between how he's speaking and how they're speaking. So in fact he's not wrong to try and align himself more."
Do some people just pick up and retain accents?
Actor Austin Butler, who is originally from California, is someone else who has been teased for not losing his southern accent after portraying legendary singer Elvis Presley in the 2022 film Elvis. He spent months learning how to imitate it with the help of a vocal coach and said he couldn't shake it after filming ended.
From The Graham Norton Show, Austin Butler on struggling to get rid of his Elvis accent
"There are two things there. First, there are people who are really good at learning languages and they have a gift and they just do it. It's like Meryl Streep, she's fabulous, she can just do any accent. But the second thing is it depends a bit on the context and the motivation," says Regan.
"If you have a really good motivation to align yourself with the person you're speaking to, you're much more likely to change your speech. If you feel positive about the group." If you feel negatively about a group, you could actually distance that group by speaking differently, she adds.
Read more: How the accents you hear on Irish radio and TV ads have changed
Austin Butler returning to the Elvis accent during an acceptance speech at the BAFTAs makes sense because "this is a success thing for you. Speaking is acting. There's a histrionic - dramatic or theatrical - element to all of us when we speak. In fact in linguistics they talk about performance. Each time we speak it's a performance and we tailor how we speak to the person we're talking to. So for instance I'm kind of designing my speak for you and for the people listening and that's called audience design."
We do this all the time, Regan says. At the end of the day, people adapt to be understood and they adapt to be liked. "You need to be accepted, we like to get on with each other. That's the fundamental universal thing here."
