The Expanse's final season ended early this year, but the world it portrayed remains vivid in the minds of science fiction enthusiasts. The technological questions it explores are fascinating, but so are the political ones. In a world where humanity has expanded throughout the solar system, what divisions arise? How does new technology affect alliances and animosities? And how do people demonstrate which factions they align with?
As far as the last question goes, there is one group who tends to shout their loyalties at the top of their lungs: the Belters. Those raised in the Asteroid Belt, away from the Inner Planets of Earth, Luna, Mars, are proud of their ability to survive and adapt. They have learned to ration food and water however they can. They turn rust buckets into working ships. Where the common language of the Inner Planets seems to have become English, the Belters, likely over several generations, developed their own Creole language incorporating various tongues from Earth. This language is another demonstration of their resourcefulness, as Creoles are developed by people from different backgrounds who must find a way to communicate with one another.
Most Belters speak this Creole as their first language, and when they do speak English, tend to speak in a Belter dialect with a unique accent. A few Belters in the show, however, lack these features in their speech. The show never explains why, but with context clues, it's possible to discern.
The reason a Belter might change the way they speak is most likely the same reason why some people in the real world do the same: stereotypes and social stigmas associated with the way one speaks, and the desire to either embrace those assumptions or avoid them. Consider two prominent Belter characters who do not speak in Belter accents: Josephus Miller, the Star Helix cop from Ceres, and Naomi Nagata, former OPA and a member of the Rocinante's crew.
Miller's Upward Mobility
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In the Season 1 finale "Leviathan Wakes," Miller talks about growing up on the streets of Ceres, determined to make something more of himself than the others he saw around him. In his world, Belters are seen as lowlifes and criminals, people who are not to be trusted. If he were to climb the social ladder and seek a position of power, Miller needed to disassociate himself from his Belter heritage. Adopting an accent of the Inner Planets made him appear more respectable to the Star Helix security corporation — he likely would not have gotten his job if he spoke like the other Belters on Ceres, the troublemakers whom the company felt needed to be controlled.
However, there are two sides to this coin. Miller's position as a cop, working for a company owned by Inners, does little to endear him to his fellow Belters. In the first episode, a protester calls him "welwala," which he explains means "traitor to my people." However, the animosity goes deeper than his profession. Throughout the first season, Belters claim that Miller is trying to hide who he is; they claim that he's trying to be an Inner. He speaks in the accent of the Inner Planets; he hides the physical features that mark him as Belter-born.
Of course, dialect isn't the only way of displaying Belter solidarity. After leaving Ceres and his position as a cop, finding himself on Tycho Station, Miller comes to embrace the ways of his people. He adapts the Belter hairstyle and tattoos, showing allegiance to those who have taken him in. He still speaks in his Inner Planets dialect throughout his time on the show, but this comes in handy during tense negotiations. Inners, even those who sympathize with the Belt, seem to take ideas more seriously when they're voiced in standardized English like Miller's.
Naomi's Code-Switching
Naomi, when first introduced, doesn't appear to be much different from the other crew members of the Canterbury. It is only during Holden's interrogation by the Martians that he learns she has been associated with the OPA — the Outer Planets Alliance, a group advocating (sometimes violently) for human rights for Belters. Though he and the other crew may have known that Naomi grew up in the Belt, the viewers didn't, and this reveal thus holds more weight than it would have if her origin had been apparent from her accent.
Naomi's lack of Belter dialect makes sense from a storytelling point as well. As the series progresses, it becomes clearer that Naomi did indeed have a past with the OPA, one that she regrets. Adopting an accent of the Inner Planets may have been one way that she tried to distance herself from her Belter heritage and the past that she wants to forget. Additionally, as with Miller, a "respectable" accent may have played a role in her being hired to a ship contracted by the Inner Planets.
But as the story progresses, the crew of the Rocinante must work with Belters on more than one occasion, and Naomi speaks differently with them than she does with Holden, Alex, Amos, and others from the Inner Planets. In the field of linguistics, the term code switching refers to a person's tendency to speak in different dialects, or even different languages, in different situations. From the second season forward, Naomi displays this often.
When talking with her people, Naomi regularly throws in phrases in Belter Creole, showing the Belters that she's one of them. In Season 3, when working alongside the crew of the OPA ship Behemoth, she talks like a Belter. It appears to come naturally to her, likely because it is the dialect she first learned to speak. Yet when speaking to her friends on the Roci or to other Inners, Naomi still talks like an Inner. Code switching can be conscious or subconscious, and in Naomi's case, it isn't clear which it is. Perhaps Naomi lapsed back into her original way of speaking after spending enough time with fellow Belters again; on the other hand, perhaps it is a conscious strategy in order to find acceptance among them. Perhaps she, like Miller, seeks to appear more rational and "civilized" when negotiating with those from the Inner Planets, and seeks to appeal to the Belter sense of unity by speaking with them in their own dialect.
The Expanse is constantly fraught with political tension, full of people from different backgrounds facing each other down. When a person's accent or dialect reveals — or prompts others to assume — certain aspects of their background or social class, language very quickly becomes political. Some Belters try to ingratiate themselves by using a "polished" dialect when speaking to those from the Inner Planets; others shout their allegiances proudly by exaggerating their Belter accents. Others do both, cleverly using language to their advantage in different situations — perhaps without even realizing it.