Imitating television

[Mariette]

A question for teen/adult Aspies out there:

Did you ever imitate TV characters' speech?

My son (4) talks exactly like Dora the Explorer. Whenever he is doing something, he would talk to himself in a question/answer mode just like Dora does. He also uses a whole lot of other phrases from other characters, e.g. "Alright, alRIGHT" like Donald Duck.
We live in South Africa, and our home language is Afrikaans, but of course the television is mainly in English, and therefore he also speaks A LOT of English, even though we only speak Afrikaans to him.

The therapist explained that the television captures his attention more than we do, and therefore he tends to pick up the speech on the television much rather than from us.

Does it sound like something you did?

 

[Mia]

Yes it does Mariette. When I was a teen and even as a child I learned both english and french from television. Lived for a long time as a young child in a disney created world of cartoons and ideas. So much so that when I was outside playing I thought the world was like a disney cartoon, that trees would talk and rocks would roll away. I sang the music, danced and lived within that fictional world, for a time, until school began.

When I was young and in a playpen, still crawling, a mickey mouse cartoon band began to play on television. I pulled myself up to watch it, and began to walk and rock back and forth, up and down. Because the characters were marching, I began to march myself, it was my first time walking and mickey mouse showed me how to do it with music and fun.

It's not uncommon for children to emulate and talk much like the fictional characters they see on television or in movies. Know several pre-school age children in the area who speak like Dora as well as Caillou. It's highly likely that it's something that most children exposed to television do.

 

[ChurchTheArtist]

I didn't as a kid due to lack of comprehension and non-verbal stuff.
But just recently I found that I pick up those mimic quirks when I talk to myself. Just the other day when I got angry and paced my living room trying to talk myself down, I couldn't stop talking british! I had been watching BBC Top Gear for a while and never did a british accent until then but I found that when I got mad... I turned british.

I've also (when talking to myself) mimicked character speech patterns depending on the personality or mood I was in. For example when working through my more logic driven thoughts I spoke in that odd way that Agent Smith talks in the Matrix. I also mimic House MD too as well as a few other characters. I guess when my personality and mood aligns with a character, the speech comes along with it because we often see our inner voice or inner self with a TV overlay for who we feel like we want to be at that moment. Especially since we don't grow to be very self identifying and often learn our behaviors by watching others (like on TV) so that when we start calling on the fragments of our personalities that require the character you learned from, the voice just kinda' comes out.

British anger is pretty cool BTW. It really helps keep you from going overboard because you can never take yourself 100% too seriously when you sound like a posh Brit.
(not being racist or anything, I'm from the South in USA so I'm pleased to hear British accent over redneck any day)

 

[Mr Allen]

The main thing I can think of is after 20 years of watching UK Soap Brookside, I kind of picked up a Liverpool accent, quite strong at times even though I've actually only been to Liverpool itself about 3 times in my life.

 

[Mr Allen]

I didn't as a kid due to lack of comprehension and non-verbal stuff.
But just recently I found that I pick up those mimic quirks when I talk to myself. Just the other day when I got angry and paced my living room trying to talk myself down, I couldn't stop talking british! I had been watching BBC Top Gear for a while and never did a british accent until then but I found that when I got mad... I turned british.

I've also (when talking to myself) mimicked character speech patterns depending on the personality or mood I was in. For example when working through my more logic driven thoughts I spoke in that odd way that Agent Smith talks in the Matrix. I also mimic House MD too as well as a few other characters. I guess when my personality and mood aligns with a character, the speech comes along with it because we often see our inner voice or inner self with a TV overlay for who we feel like we want to be at that moment. Especially since we don't grow to be very self identifying and often learn our behaviors by watching others (like on TV) so that when we start calling on the fragments of our personalities that require the character you learned from, the voice just kinda' comes out.

British anger is pretty cool BTW. It really helps keep you from going overboard because you can never take yourself 100% too seriously when you sound like a posh Brit.
(not being racist or anything, I'm from the South in USA so I'm pleased to hear British accent over redneck any day)

I could take listening to a "Posh" English accent over someone who sounds like Cletus from the Simpsons any day