I suppose adapting your speech, including your accent, to the circumstances is second nature. But some people speak in such a way so as to confuse others. In other words, their intent is not communicate what they're saying but something else. I think this is typical in the tech world of computers and programming. They have their own vocabulary and slang, although that's true in other fields of work. By academic speech, I assume you are referring to research papers and books written by scientists and academics, especially in the soft sciences.
If clothes control us or if clothes are used to control us, it isn't clear to me how that is happening, Likewise, culture. Culture is whatever we are. It isn't created somewhere else and forced on us, although there are plenty of cases of a culture being imposed on someone else's culture and that has nothing to do with culture wars. When any sort of control is being exercised, it is at a very low level. And it isn't the clothes that are controlling but rather they are the manifestation of control being exercised. Take the Amish, for instance.
The Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites and similar small societies generally wear distinctive clothing, the distinction being that the clothing is plain, more or less. It is decidedly old-fashioned and the only variation to speak of is winter and summer clothing. There is also a clear delineation of male and female clothing, although not so much young and old. The clothing itself has no controlling function. The community is the controlling function and the elders make the rules. There is an underlying premise behind the clothing they wear (as with the beards--but no mustaches--for the men). It is possible, I suppose, for the wearing of plain clothes to be an attempt to eliminate a lot of un-Christian behavior in the community such as vanity, greed and so on by the use of plain, unfashionable clothing. But they sort of get stuck in time, too. The Mennonites originated in the 16th century but they sure don't wear clothes like that today.
Perhaps a better example of clothing as a control factor is uniforms for school children. The idea is largely the same, to eliminate vanity, greed and jealously among school kids who might otherwise get too involved with fads and fashions. In a sense, school uniforms are to avoid having clothing be significant to the students. These analogies don't hold true for the military and police, neither of which are beyond the influence of fashion.
Did you ever notice that in so-called primitive cultures, meaning tribal societies, it is often the case that everyone is dressed exactly the same, save for the male and female differences? I don't think there is a control factor present but rather an identify factor. There is a strong and natural urge to identify with the tribe. I think that this urge is sometimes frustrated in larger, more developed and more mobile societies, though it certainly happens. Of course, at the same time, all of these things can happen without an individual being aware of it. We may not all have the same psychological needs.
