Sociolinguists study what happens to language when it is put to use in society. And one of the things they noticed was that, when people talk to each other, something happens to the language they use. Imagine: I meet you, and we start talking. If we hit it off, and we start to enjoy one another’s company, then one of the ways in which we unconsciously display this rapport is that our accents start to move towards each other. I begin to sound a bit like you, and you a bit like me. We ‘accommodate’ to each other. (If we don’t hit it off, of course, then the opposite applies. I try to make myself sound as different from you as I can, and you from me.) It’s not just accents. We start to share words, too, adopting the same sort of facial expression or body posture. But accent is always the most noticeable thing, because it’s there in everything we say. Everybody accommodates, to some extent, even if they don’t realize they’re doing it. It must be part of our evolutionary makeup, a way of showing a group who belongs to it. Some people, though – perhaps those with a good ear for accents, perhaps those with a specially sensitive personality – do it more noticeably than others.

“Just a Phrase I’m Going Through: My
Life in Language” (via a-modern-major-general)

yeah this is why I don’t give politicians shit for going on a rural tour and starting to do speech appearances with an “affected” accent or something, if you’ve got a facility for language that comes natural