Voice Inflection

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Tonight I was briefly talking to one of my co-workers, and when I was through with my lil rant, she said something to the effect of, "Woah, you sounded Canadian, Australian, Irish or like a mix between those just then!".

This is not the first time that I've heard such a thing. This is the second time that I've been told that I sounded Australian (years ago a customer I was working with asked if I was Australian). At least once I've been mistaken for being southern, over the phone. Fairly occasionally, vowel sounds shift so that I sound British, which myself and others get a laugh over.

On a similar note, sometimes when I get enthusiastic relaying something, I get semi chocked up, teary-eyed almost and have to take a imperceptible second to calm myself to finish what I am saying.

It can make me feel somewhat self conscious at times, but for the most part I just laugh it off.

Side note: I had idiosyncratic speech when I was a child, stuttering at times, repeating myself, and when I would speak my mouth would always slant down and to the right.

What about you guys?

Last edited by Bether3 on 01 Oct 2018, 2:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

My voice is just a dull monotone like a depressed robot! I can't really do anything with it. I have had people ask me, "What's wrong with your voice?" I have also been asked if I am American despite being British.

My accent and dialect is always all over the place; I sometimes notice myself doing it, but usually not unless someone points it out to me. In part, it's probably because there are so many different British accents in my family and I've lived in a fair few different places; my brain has assimilated bits of all of the different styles of speech and mixes them up quite randomly. The accents of people that I'm speaking to rub off on me very quickly too; I've nearly gotten into bother when people have accused me of mocking the way that they speak, but I just don't realise that I'm doing it.

I usually have pretty flat prosody, and I've always been terrible for mumbling; people quite often have to ask me to say things again because I wasn't clear enough (I'm very hard to lip-read, too, according to hearing-impaired people that I've known.) It doesn't help that I find it hard to judge how loud I'm speaking, and I really hate having to raise my voice; if I see someone I know a little distance away, I'll often not be able to attract their attention because I find it so hard to shout. On the other hand, if someone does ask me to speak up, I quite often go too far the other way, and end up broadcasting what I say to the whole room (that's led to lots of embarrassing moments!)

It's common for me to choke up, or for my usual flat tone of voice to go high-pitched and "squeaky" if I'm stressed out or very excited, and it becomes very difficult to find the words that I need. If I get particularly stressed, near to melt-down/shut-down, then my language ability deteriorates rapidly; even to the point of not being able to speak at all, or becoming unable to understand other people's speech. When I start to struggle with language, it's always a sign that I need a break because a shut-down won't be long coming.

I have the same experience as the original poster; however, I don't ever really get choked up unless I'm furious. I've watched television and not travelled. My friend finds it annoying after a while. Sometimes, I consciously do it to see if I have control over it but it tends to sound more authentic without the effort. It's usually when I'm asking questions that the British comes out. I think that it could be something with minimal energy that causes us to jump between accents whereas most people work only with what they intimately know. Did you use to mask a lot?

When I'm talking with people outside my immediate family, I tend to be monotone and have to make a conscious effort to throw in some inflection as a courtesy to the listener. If I yielded completely to my desire, I would be flat monotone and expressionless while conversing.

With my immediate family, I have odd speech patterns which have developed over time from my imitation/parroting of voices from TV mainly. For a long time with the various patterns I knew I was imitating when I was speaking in those ways, but after such a long time, they stuck. I'll try to think of examples, but one that comes to mind:

Intead of saying: "What is it?", at home with my wife and kids, I'll say: "What uzz utt?"

Instead of: "Do you like it?", when I'm at home, it's: "Do you lyke utt?"

There are many more but I can't think of any others right now.

An American guy with a basically midwestern dialect here, but for a while back in college some folks thought that I "sounded British", then a few years later in the Eighties a young lady customer on the phone said "my boyfriend is Canadian, and you sound Canadian". Other guys told me that I should have told her that "for you I can be Canadian".

But that must have been just a phase in how I talked. Havent heard folks say anything like that in the decades since.

I really don’t like my voice at all. I do tent to pick up accents depending on who I am around.

I do tend to speak in monotone around people I don’t know that well which annoys me. I wish I could stop myself from doing but can’t help it.

"...and I've always been terrible for mumbling; people quite often have to ask me to say things again because I wasn't clear enough"< I was when I was younger. When I'm talking to someone, they'll question something I say, and I'll correct them, saying "No, I said "this particular word", then they'll be like, "Ohh! I thought you said "such and such"!" and I'll be like, "Nooo" and we'll both have a lil' laugh. This happens all.the.time. It's odd though because I enunciate, and have been told many times that I am "articulate", and when I hear myself speak it all sounds crystal clear, so I don't understand how others can hear a completely different word other than the one I said.

"It doesn't help that I find it hard to judge how loud I'm speaking, and I really hate having to raise my voice; if I see someone I know a little distance away, I'll often not be able to attract their attention because I find it so hard to shout."< Same! Though I've only noticed that as of late. My right ear is clogged, or something.

"On the other hand, if someone does ask me to speak up, I quite often go too far the other way, and end up broadcasting what I say to the whole room (that's led to lots of embarrassing moments!)"< Lol! I get it. When I get excited about something I can get pretty loud. My younger sister always shushes me and tells me how loud I am being.

"If I get particularly stressed, near to melt-down/shut-down, then my language ability deteriorates rapidly; even to the point of not being able to speak at all, or becoming unable to understand other people's speech."< Me too! When I am anxious, when something is troubling me, it's blatantly obvious, as I am super quiet, mute basically. Actually, now that I think about it, my tone also becomes flat and monotone and immediately upon hearing me, those that know me are like, "What's wrong? You sound depressed.". Throughout my life I've noticed that there are times when I'm listening to people and for a moment or two I can't understand them because it sounds as if they are speaking another language. Is that what you are referring to? When I was in elementary school I recall a period in which no matter how carefully I listened to someone speaking to me it was as if I couldn't hold on to their words, put them together to form sentences, so I would have to ask "What?" a couple times, still couldn't grasp what they were saying, and then I'd give up. It got to the point where I would dread classmates speaking to me. I have a vague memory of getting my hearing checked thoroughly by a professional- my hearing was fine. Is this Auditory Processing Disorder?

I've wondered about it having to do with minimal energy, as when I'm depressed my tone goes back to what is what I consider my natural, base tone, though I never use it. And yes, I suppose I did, do. In some ways it's hard for me to distinguish which parts of me are authentic and which are learned, that I picked up to compensate.

"throw in some inflection as a courtesy to the listener. If I yielded completely to my desire, I would be flat monotone and expressionless while conversing."< Yes, me too! I feel like my entire life I've been doing nearly everything to be courteous to others... it's exhausting.

I haven't parroted, at least that I'm aware of- I just naturally have had odd speech patterns, much more noticeably when I was younger.

In Germany we have a lot of dialects but I'm also speaking without any dialect. My brother (NT) took much more of the local dialect from his friends. Prof. Tony Attwood in the linked video says that your strange dialect is caused because you have learned the language more from TV and books then from friends and for this you took much more words that are atypical for your location. (The language related stuff starts at 14:58 in the first video)

There is also an other point. There are people who are strong visual thinkers and others who nearly never think visual and instead more verbal and abstract. Visual thinkers start a little bit later to speak and have a less developed feeling for the language compared to the nonvisual ones. My kids (both NT) are visual. Once they were small my kids had some problems to add any nonvisual stuff like the verbs or adverbs to their sentences. As far as I know are you a strong visual thinker too and may be that you were the same way as a child.
PS: Autism is an emotional thing and doesn't depend on visual and nonvisual thinking.

Tony Attwood is great. I didn't know that, and I haven't seen these videos before...Thank you so much!

Well, I didn't have any delay in speaking (as far as I know). Language has always been an area that I am strong in. Teachers have remarked on my gift in writing, and as early as grade school, my papers started being kept.) I think abstractly. Simple concepts sometimes go over my head, as I seem (and have been told) to overanalyze, while deep, esoteric thinking, for instance expressed by minds like Carl Jung and Eckhart Tolle, make perfect sense to me. Although I have a very vivid, visual dream life, and when I am in a high, meditative state, everything is visual- I see geometric shapes and illustrations to explain metaphorical concepts.

I didn't knew them too until a couple of days ago. I'm glad I found the videos. There is also a third one that I didn't watched so far.



Sorry, I didn't expect this even if the eyes on the picture say so. Visual thinkers often look ahead towards their inside in a strange way. Don't ever talk to much to them once they are driving the car - their visual thinking may distracted them quite much. I like the clear look of your eyes much more.


I'm also a quite overanalytic abstract thinker but I didn't give much about any kind of spirituality until now. May be you can help me to change this a little bit because it sounds interesting. I'll contact you per PM for this because such stuff is always a private thing.

Yeah, kind of; it's quite hard to put into words (ironically!) If I have a particularly bad shut-down, it's like I just lose ability with language; even inside my own head, I can't think of ideas which need words to describe them, and I sometimes lose the ability to read or write, too (I'm definitely not a visual thinker like some autistic people are.)


I'd like to have this looked into properly. I'm certain that there's little wrong with my hearing; in fact, I can hear many things which other people don't, like some ultra-sonic frequencies. I think sometimes that it's because I hear too much, rather than too little, and sensory processing difficulties were mentioned at my autism assessment, but not followed up on, as there was no-one available to do it.