Are you a unique speaker, or do you imitate others?

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I read that Aspies often learn to speak more from reading than from social interaction, so their sentences are often more gramatically correct and they are less prone to slang, etc. (What about Aspies who don't read much??)

On the other hand, to be social, Aspies often learn to imitate others, right? In that case, wouldn't that mean they would use lots of slang, and even imitate their best friends' rhythms of speech, etc?

I was wondering this because I recently realized that since I moved away and met my best friend last year, I have started imitating her way of speaking. She is from Singapore and has a very distinctive way of raising and lowering her voice, enunciating her syllables, etc.

I suppose it is only natural that I imitate the people I'm around the most, but I just realized I do it to an EXTREME degree. My "default mode" of speech matches my best friend's, but, for instance, the other day I spoke to a cool, calm classmate and I realized I was hardly using any facial expressions, my voice was even, etc...VERY different from the tone I adopt with my best friend, or my professor, or my family back home. (All of these speech styles are different.)

Is this common among Aspies or not? Are you very affected by those around you, or do you speak in a unique way, no matter who you are with?

My manner of speaking somewhat resembles General Melchett from Blackadder Goes Forth "Make a note of the word gobbledegook! I like it, I want to use it in conversation".

If a word trips off the tongue nicely, slang or not, I will use it. I love "scran", but by far, my favorite word is "syphilitic". I'm not even sure why...

I tend to speak as if I'm a character off a sitcom, or even a more farfetched sort of drama (unintentionally, I hasten to add). I can come across as a little up myself as a consequence, but it makes me happy

I forgot about that option: imitating TV. I've done that on occasion too.

People have commented to me on my very nice annuciation...
It used to be in videos of myself on stage, I spoke in a very flat, deadpan sorta way with a slight strange accent...maybe Canadian....slightly English, but not quite.

My vocal coach in school said I sounded like I was from New england or something...even in very subtle inflections.

For at least the last decade or so, I have not been able to shake this Gracie Allen...Helen Kane...type speaking voice...(and f.y.i. according to a book about her life, she didn't always speak that hight..that was her stage voice)

I dont imitate it on purpose, and i do have a naturally high speaking voice and I sing alot..but I have been accused of talking the way I do "on purpose"...it makes me really mad..because I really don't.

Why do people talk the way they do? Does anyone really have their own voice?

I might have more than one way of speech that will kick in for different occasions.
My "serious" voice is a bit more deadpan than my "musical" voice....but I don't think my "musical voice is any less real..or my own...than my flat, deadpan, slightly accented, serious voice.

Sorta like popeye..ever notice how in Popeye cartoons, he has that high little voice that he uses when talking to himself and then the loud gruff voice he uses for other people?...it is kinda like that for me at times.

I lived ten years in Oklahoma and 13 in North Carolina (and now I'm in Texas, of all places). And yet, people are always asking me if I'm a yankee.

*headdesk*

And then, god forbid I watch any kind of tv show that has people from other countries in it (Lord Peter Wimsey, Trainspotting etc), because for at least a good hour after the show has ended, I'll have some version of that accent.

Plus, most of my vocab came from books and so I don't always pronounce words correctly.

In eighth grade a friend once told me "You talk all good 'n' stuff". In my younger years I had a couple people tell me that I talked "weird". You know... "Why do you talk like that"? I didn't feel weird, I just felt bad for kids thinking that they had to butcher the English language to be "normal". As I got older and the importance of using slang subsided in my peer group, I actually got compliments for it, and I was the person that the whole class turned around and looked at whenever there was a word someone didn't know. Even the freaking teacher. Now that... that's sad. That was the day I lost any faith I'd ever had in the public school system.

Oh my gosh. I do this. I am very self-conscious of it sometimes. It causes me mental pain and suffering to speak incorrectly or knowingly spell words incorrectly. If I say something incorrectly, I feel that I must correct myself, out loud. People look at me funny.

I also immitate people, unknowingly.

When I lived in Alaska I asked some Native Alaskans about this once at UAF.
They worked in the Native Studies section and had dealt with plenty of non-Natives.

They told me that there were times when a non-native would be talking with them and start talking like them.

I asked them because I have had a history of doing the same thing.
I grew up in West Texas and had a pretty thick drawl because of it, but I would still change my speech inflections and patterns when talking to someone who sounded different than I.

It wasn't a conscious thing either. I used to shoe horses up in Fairbanks and one of my clients was a native family who lived close to Nenana.
My wife always knew when I was talking to them on the phone because I would start pausing more often, change my voice just a bit, etc.
I wouldn't notice until she said something.
I never got the feeling the family thought I was making fun of the way they talk or anything like that.

I do believe, though, this is why I can do some pretty good voices when reading books like Harry Potter, to my daughter. I had a different voice and accent for each character.

Only recently started copying the speech of people I know, but got mercilessly ribbed for being the speaker during a Christmas play, and saying it like it was on the page, not like a person. Always imitated TV, though, to a scary level.

My manner of speaking is probably found funny by others because my rich stock of words comes mostly from books because I rarely talk to people prefering reading to this. Sentences constructed by me tend to be long and sophisticated, full of "big words" what sounds artificially, almost as if I was reading from a book aloud. I don't use slang expressions because they sound stupid to my ears; after all I'm not going to be considered "cool" by my peers by using teenagers slang and even if, using fashionable words wouldn't help me in achieving this aim.

When I've just caught a phrase that seems to sound really great, I tend to use it at presence of other people for a long time.

I normally speak like a sports commentator thats what most people say 2 me.