A thought about accents
Feb. 2nd, 2005 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienYes, I'm going to bed soon. (I read the first chapter of Destroyer; it's good!)
But I just had a thought that I'm noting down here for future use, and offering to anyone who might find it useful. When I first moved here, I went through a period of a month or two when I almost completely lost the ability to recognize people by voice; on the phone, I couldn't even reliably tell men from women. My theory was that my voice-recognition circuits simply registered 'American accent' and shut down without doing any further processing. Somewhat later in the acclimation process, I found myself sometimes losing nouns; when the American and British names for a thing differed, I'd temporarily fail to remember either version.
This kind of thing might well be a problem for anyone suddenly dumped in an environment where the ambient language is slightly different from the one they grew up with.
But I just had a thought that I'm noting down here for future use, and offering to anyone who might find it useful. When I first moved here, I went through a period of a month or two when I almost completely lost the ability to recognize people by voice; on the phone, I couldn't even reliably tell men from women. My theory was that my voice-recognition circuits simply registered 'American accent' and shut down without doing any further processing. Somewhat later in the acclimation process, I found myself sometimes losing nouns; when the American and British names for a thing differed, I'd temporarily fail to remember either version.
This kind of thing might well be a problem for anyone suddenly dumped in an environment where the ambient language is slightly different from the one they grew up with.
