Occurs when one form of speech contaminates another. Affinity refers to ways of speaking, intonation, accents, or turns of phrase that are transmitted and propagated from one speaker to another. Igor Stravinsky, excerpt of a rehearsal of Vorona. Affinity Occurs when one form of speech contaminates another. In terms as diverse as intonation, accentuation, rhythm, or even timbre, it is also modeled by the words of others, through which a person learns how to speak or modify their own speech.
Affinity can be witnessed when the words of speaker A borrow characteristics from the speech of speaker B, whether said speaker is present or not. Affinity in absentia takes place when speaker B is absent but still identifiable. Family influence or reinforced proximity are its most paradigmatic examples. Jean Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen speak with the utmost fluency and in flagrant affinity with their respective fathers.
In other cases, B could be a type or universal abstraction. Affinity in praesentia takes place when A and B are taking part in the same speech act—in which case contamination can be seen in action. Particularly visible examples of this process can be found in situations where simultaneous translation is taking place: as in this English-language sermon by David Ogan , followed by its German translation by an interpreter, made with very similar forms of intonation. When Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles perform sound poetry, they jointly build tonal, rhythmic, and syntactic continuity into one flow.
To get her daughter to recite the alphabet, this mother uses a question and answer game where each player challenges the other to continue speaking at their rate see also Si! In this comical scene from the film The Pink Panther , however, affinity takes shape in negative terms, through the repeated failure of the learning process. Though less obvious at first glance, affinity can also happen during a conversation, almost inadvertently, giving us a good example of how porous certain ways of speaking can be.
Here as well, speakers occasionally talking simultaneously validate their words through repetition or shared laughter. Contamination can become playful through mimics or momentum, as in this video game , in this scene from the subway , or in this excerpt from the film Je sais rien mais je dirai tout. In the entrance to an auditorium , individuals are both united by a shared activity—waiting for the beginning of the show—and separate. Conversations are centered around their own topics of discussion commenting on a friend, talking about previous shows, etc.
