https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/25/sorry-to-bother-you-white-voice-code-switching

Code-switching can indicate various situations in the speaker, including (but not limited to) sensitivity to linguistic context (and the common parlance or tone of conversational participants), natural empathic emulation of styles (and even accents), confusion, mocking, misguided attempts to please… and more.

I have found something like this comes naturally to me (I am an empathic code-switcher), but can also be confusing because if I am not ‘trying’ to do this, what is actually going on? Occasionally it can generate an uncomfortable moment or even a fumble of some kind…

“Long before «Sorry to Bother You« taught moviegoers the meaning of code-switching – the act of altering how you express yourself based on your audience – I learned its power by listening to my father take phone calls. While checking in with his mother in Georgia he’d drift into a black southern lilt, subtly prolonging vowel sounds as he reverted to his childhood timbre. From there, he’d answer calls from his white co-workers, ingratiating himself with carefree enthusiasm and a formal syntax while deftly employing his lawyerly lexicon.”