Doubletalk of the month
Language Log 2014-03-09
Several people have sent me links to this recently-posted video:
There's a sequel here.
I've noticed that people who are good at imitating accents and languages often associate each imitation with a different setting of postures, gestures, facial expressions, body-movement patterns, etc., as this woman does.
But this young man maintains fairly consistent body language through all of his accent imitations. And Amy Walker seems to limit the changes to the lower half of her face.
Some other posts on doubletalk-ish things:
"Yaourter", 7/21/2009 "Prisencolinensinainciusol", 10/25/2009 "Yoghurt medley", 7/23/2010 "What English sounds like if you have Wernicke's apahasia", 10/22/2011 "How Sid Caesar learned double-talk", 2/13/2014