Foreign accent syndrome is a rare medical condition involving speech production that usually occurs as a side effect of severe brain injury, such as a stroke or a head injury. Two cases have been reported of individuals with the condition as a development problem and one associated with severe migraine. Between 1941 and 2009, there have been sixty recorded cases. Its symptoms result from distorted articulatory planning and coordination processes. It must be emphasized that the speaker does not suddenly gain a foreign language (vocabulary, syntax, grammar, etc); they merely pronounce their native language with a foreign or dialectical accent. Despite a recent unconfirmed news report that a Croatian speaker has gained the ability to speak fluent German after emergence from a coma, there has been no verified case where a patient’s foreign language skills have improved after a brain injury (and in fact in the case of the Croatian girl, she lost her ability to speak Croatian).
To the untrained ear, those with the syndrome sound as though they speak their native languages with a foreign accent; for example, an American native speaker of Englishmight sound as though they speak with a south-eastern English accent, or a native British speaker might speak with a New York American accent. However, researchers at Oxford University have found that certain, specific parts of the brain were injured in some foreign-accent syndrome cases, indicating that certain parts of the brain control various linguistic functions, and damage could result in altered pitch or mispronounced syllables, causing speech patterns to be distorted in a non-specific manner. More recently, there is mounting evidence that the cerebellum, which controls motor function, may be crucially involved in some cases of foreign accent syndrome, reinforcing the notion that speech pattern alteration is mechanical, and thus non-specific. Thus, the perception of a foreign accent is likely a case of pareidolia on the part of the listener.
For example, damage to the brain might result in difficulty pronouncing the letter ‘r’ at the end of words, forcing a rhotic speaker to use a non-rhotic accent, even if they have never spoken with one. In the U.S., non-rhoticity is a particularly notable feature of a Boston accent, thus the person might seem to speak with a Boston accent to the casual listener. However, many of the other features of a Boston accent may be wholly missing.
Some have suggested that in order to maintain a sense of normality and flow, someone with the syndrome then augments the accent effect by imitating the rest of the accent. Depending on how important a certain phoneme is to a person’s original accent, they might find speaking in a different accent to be much easier and their usual accent very difficult to consistently pronounce after some motor skills have been lost.
22 Apr 10
Foreign accent syndrome →
