Language Imitation Goes Beyond the Spoken Word

Humans take naturally to language imitation, mimicking the spoken patterns and verbal tics of those around them. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve probably done your fair share of language imitation in your life.

Born and raised in the southern United States, I grew up peppering my speech with “y’all.” After living in Canada for five years, “y’all” has pretty much dropped from my vocabulary, while the occasional “eh” — the ultimate Canadian cliché — sneaks its way in.

Cases of language imitation like this seem simple enough: you spend time around people who speak a certain way, and you pick up their spoken mannerisms. This concept even applies on a broader scale, as languages are known to influence each other. However, new research suggests that the process of language imitation may be strongly linked to physical cues just as much as verbal cues, making the process of language imitation far more complex than first thought.

“Monkey Speak, Monkey Repeat”

You may have heard of mirroring body language as a communication skill. By imitating the physical motions of the person you are speaking with, researchers say you can create a subconscious show of attentiveness, or even communicate intimacy or physical attraction. While we’ve probably been mirroring body language of others for hundreds of years, conscious use of body mirroring is a more recent phenomenon. It can even help score success on a date, according to this Oprah Magazine article.

The mirror system hypothesis is not limited solely to physical actions. When speaking with others, we may unconsciously imitate speech characteristics like accent, talking speed and inflection. If you’ve ever been told that you sound just like your mother, brother or best friend when you speak, it may be a case of language imitation. Hollywood actors use this type of imitation when preparing for a role with an accent.

Surprising New Facts About Language Imitation

New research on language imitation from the University of California, Riverside, reveals that speech imitation may be possible even if we never actually hear the voice of the person whose speech we unconsciously imitate. Researchers at UCR asked hearing individuals to watch a silent face simply mouth a series of simple words, like “tennis.” The test subjects, who had no formal lip-reading training or experience, were then asked to identify the words mouthed by the silent face (to make the test easier, they were given a choice between two words, like “tennis” or “table”).

Although the subjects were never asked to try to repeat or imitate the silent speaker, researchers found that they unconsciously imitated the silent speaker: a subject’s voice would sound much more like that of the silent speaker’s when he identified the silent speaker’s word, than if the subject was simply asked to read the same word from a list.

Implications of Language Imitation in a Silent Language

The results of the UCR experiment are significant because they suggest that unintentional language imitation is applicable to lip-reading, not just spoken language. This is huge news for the lip-reading community of hearing-impaired individuals because of the social significance that has long been attributed to unintentional language imitation as a social connector. If language imitation is also implicit to lip-reading, this under-the-radar means of subconscious socializing is not lost in the lip-reading community.

Overall, this research is also significant because it once again underlines the importance of non-verbal communication among humans. Little details like physical mirroring can be just as important as the words coming out of your mouth. Of course there’s no guarantee that mimicking your date’s every verbal tic will make him feel more connected to you — on the contrary, it’s likely to freak him out if he notices. At the very least, however, language imitation can make for an interesting conversation topic.