Republicans Accuse Kamala Harris of Changing Her Accent Again
Source: Newsweek
By Emma Marsden
In a fresh wave of criticism, Republican commentators have accused Vice President Kamala Harris of altering her accent again during a recent public appearance.
The allegations resurfaced following Harris' speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 2024 Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington D.C. on Saturday, September 14, where she appeared alongside President Joe Biden.
Since Harris' appearance at the event, where she addressed the attendees and spoke in an accent that appeared to differ from her usual one, GOP figures have claimed her accent change, tone and manner of speaking seemed tailored to appeal to the audience.
(snip)
It is not the first time Harris has faced such claims. Critics have previously accused her of modifying her speech patterns, particularly when addressing different demographic groups, alleging that the vice president adjusts her accent depending on the audience.
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-accuse-kamala-harris-changing-her-accent-again-1954010
I'm not sure which is more ridiculous ... what Republicans are saying or the fact that Newsweek thought this was a story. Whoever copy-edited this story doesn't know the job. (Yes, I used to be one.) I would have rewritten the crap out of this thing if I had been given this story to work on. That's before I would have suggested to higher ups that this wasn't a story to begin with.
Ramsey Barner
(527 posts)"Linguists have often noted that speakers, including public figures, naturally shift their tone, cadence, and vocabulary depending on context, a phenomenon known as "code-switching," especially among those who engage with a wide variety of cultural and social groups."
Irish_Dem
(55,577 posts)We all talk differently to our local minister or mayor than we do at home with our family.
We talk differently to people we just met vs people we have known for years.
And if we go home to visit our family with regional accents, we slip back into that
style of speech easily.
We speak differently to children vs adults.
pat_k
(10,318 posts)When I was commuting regularly to Columbia South Carolina for a project -- staying for a few days or a week at a time, I found myself "picking up" bits of a southern accent. When I was younger I had lived with a friend from Mississippi for a couple years, so perhaps that is where "seeds" of accent got planted. But later on, when I was on a project in Boston, I "picked up" bits of a Boston accent. Completely unintentional. Some accents just seem to be a little contagious. Or maybe some people are just more susceptible to accent contagion.
Irish_Dem
(55,577 posts)When visiting those families I still slip into those accents when talking to them.
SheilaAnn
(9,997 posts)ificandream
(10,187 posts)twodogsbarking
(11,657 posts).
Just posted about my own experience with accent contagion in Boston and in the south.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143307214#post27
sinkingfeeling
(52,634 posts)a ranting lunatic.
Kid Berwyn
(17,130 posts)What to do? What to do?
Time to panic, pukedom.
LiberalBrooke
(553 posts)They cannot attack her on policies so they make up something silly.
LizBeth
(10,575 posts)should see how I change for a dog or a child
ChazInAz
(2,722 posts)I'm an Hungarian immigrant, who grew up in an immigrant neighborhood where everybody had some kind of an accent, usually Eastern European. When tired or angry, my native one pops up occasionally...or the Russian, Lithuanian, or Polska etc. My late wife's sweet little Irish grandmother was convinced that I'd come from her native county Cork. She did wonder why I had that foreign name, though!
turbinetree
(25,042 posts)and form of publication............
FightFight
(13 posts)Does that Louisana Republican named John Kennedy--no relation to to JFK--also use a fake accen
https://boingboing.net/2023/11/30/oxford-educated-maga-senators-foghorn-leghorn-accent-is-phony-video.htmlt
Bayard
(23,560 posts)When I moved from KY to MN for a few years, people at work used to grab me and say--Talk for us! I never thought I had much of one since I've lived all over the place. I sound like I never left though, now that I've move back home.
forgotmylogin
(7,651 posts)How many times have you heard someone say "I dropped my southern accent when I moved away, but when I get talking to my family it comes right back out!"
It's also part of the art of public speaking to read your audience and make a connection. Formal speeches in an enormous venue at a podium on an echoey microphone requires your cadence and diction to be different. Speakers can't mumble nor talk fast, they need project their voice, possibly in a higher, almost shouting register and verbally "bullet point" their phrases to give the audience time to absorb and potentially react. In a smaller indoor panel in a chat-show format, speakers can be conversational and personal, using more dynamics in their voice.
Newscasters all speak differently on-air (usually with a generalized midwestern dialect) than they do when conversing in real life. It's common to drop an accent for public speaking and then speak differently when among a friend group. Your team lead who is normally low key and measured at work might cut loose when she's out with her best friends.
We all know these right-wingers speak WAY differently when they're in front of a CPAC crowd vs being interviewed on CNN.
twodogsbarking
(11,657 posts)cstanleytech
(26,805 posts)ArkansasDemocrat1
(2,602 posts)lamp_shade
(15,035 posts)jvill
(315 posts)tonekat
(1,914 posts)Bird Lady
(1,884 posts)Don't these people have better things to do?
I wonder when the day they realize they are the suckers and losers will come.
There will be a special place in hell for them and their orange Jesus.
ificandream
(10,187 posts)That's the problem, I guess. We are a nation full of dummies. After all, we elected Trump in 2016.
SWBTATTReg
(23,553 posts)being that your candidate is one of the worst candidates ever to run for president. Again.
Cowards in the republican party can't defend their own party, from the likes of djt, so in what way do they feel like they can lecture democrats on anything?
Pathetic, isn't it?
Wonder Why
(4,299 posts)Confused easily. 🤥🤥🤥
Warpy
(112,779 posts)They sure know how to focus on the important policies that go into running a big country, don't they?
Hell, I wouldn't care if she broke out into Guyanese Pidgin if she has good policies, and she does. And if that's what her audience understood best, why the hell not?
Republicans are just getting pissy because the only language they speak is LIES. Oh, and because they're losing.
4catsmom
(52 posts)NOTHING to smear her wtih.
no_hypocrisy
(48,059 posts)I hear an educated woman who successfully uses Standard English. She also excels at diction, pronunciation, and elocution.
The closest "accent" that I can discern is Northern Atlantic.
pat_k
(10,318 posts)The school stuck me in speech therapy. They heard the Chicago accent as a problem that needed correction.
Go figure.
applegrove
(121,625 posts)cousin from Scotland singing a song he wrote at a family reunion in Ottawa. My dad had a heavy Scottish brogue by the last time we sang the refrain. I've seen him pick up English accents too. He was a very empathetic person. It happens. I'm not saying Kamala did. Just that it is more common that one may think.
samnsara
(18,088 posts)...talking with his family. My dtr says 'I cant understand him'
applegrove
(121,625 posts)in the family.
Montauk6
(8,257 posts)...he was sweating on other things, looks like
LymphocyteLover
(6,236 posts)Vinca
(50,744 posts)onetexan
(13,579 posts)Happy Hoosier
(8,102 posts)I know a fwllow engineer. During the business day, his language is, for want of a better term... "whitebread."
But I hav travelled with him (for work) and when he is talking on the phone to family or friends, he speaks differently. Simply put, the dialect of off-work friends and family is differnt from the way he speaks at work. He's the only black guy on my current team, so I am sure he recognizes the situation and responds appropriately.
I mean, I do it too, to a lesser extent. I'm kind of a potty mouth in my personal life. I am not at work. I recognize the different contexts and respond appropriately.