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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

Lots of people do. Politicians are well known for changing their speech later in life in order to convey a different feeling, usually "confident and statesman-like".

Personally I modify my speech by context, just as I modify my writing. When I'm "home" (where I grew up, my parent's house) I emphasise my accent a little more, just as I use local slang.

Some people, subconsciously echo a speaking-partners accent - changing the tone, timbre, inflections, and such between conversations.

But yes, you're right that voice was strongly linked to his identity as is often the case for prolific public speakers.

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> When I'm "home" (where I grew up, my parent's house) I emphasise my accent a little more, just as I use local slang.

This is known as code-switching. It's different from modifying your "voice" (although I suspect code-switching to a different pitch may kinda count).

Hmm, I'd recognise the change in slang as form of code-switching, but the change in tone/accent I didn't think was part of that specifically as it's within the same language.

If using a different accent (different range of frequency, different speed, different tone) isn't changing one's voice then I'm not sure what really counts? At this point it sounds like you're trying to use a non-physics based concept for voice [the parameters of sound produced by vocalisation].

The movie "Do I Sound Gay" has an interesting take on this kind of thing. There's a stereotype of the "gay voice" (a bit higher-pitch, with sibilance on the "s"es, commonly incorrectly called a lisp). The 'intensity' of the voice-modifications depends largely on one's social environment. I don't remember the movie using the term "code-switching", but it certainly did seem like the same thing. I notice this myself - if I'm with other gay men I do usually adopt a bit of a changed speech-pattern totally unconsciously.

Speech is so nuanced; it really seems true that 80% of what you say has little to do with the words themselves.

Speech != voice.

One can definitely train to speak better with coaching, but your voice and most specifically your voice “ID” is unique to you. That can’t be changed.

English word choice is confusing here because voice can be "the style of speech/writing".

By changing [style of] their speech I mean the frequency, timbre, intonations, accent, nasality, etc., and NOT words, or content (which obviously can also be changed).

There are often key elements that match based on morphology of the vocal apparatus, but if I speak like a toff with a cold vs. a barrel-chested Nor'n Irelander there's little ID left.

Good mimics, those who have radio/TV shows for example, can if they choose leave nothing for a normal listener to distinguish their speech from that of the subject of their mimicry. Impressionists tend to charicateur their subjects somewhat, however.

In UK it used to be relatively common to have a "telephone choice" that would sometimes confuse even close acquaintances in to thinking you were someone else.

Another common example is when taking different languages one has a different voice.

s/"telephone choice"/"telephone voice"

Can't it? I have no idea but if you can train to speak in a different voice, how is that not changing your voice? Maybe I won't be able to speak like someone of the opposite gender because I don't have vocal chords like that, but learning to speak like someone with a similar body should be doable, no? Or can speech recognition systems really pick this out somehow and is there really the concept of a unique voice to a person?

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