LINGUIST List 8.1497

Fri Oct 17 1997

Disc: FAS: Foreign Accenet Syndrome

Editor for this issue: Brett Churchill <brettlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Crookston, Ian [HES], query for submission
2. Dr James M Scobbie, FOREIGN ACCENT SYNDROME

My students were asking me about a recent case of so-called foreign language 
syndrome in Scotland, which had apparently featured on news broadcasts. It 
is said that a woman went to sleep a perfectly unexceptionable Scot and 
awoke "with a perfect South African accent". Does anybody have any better 
knowledge of this or of similar cases? My suspicion is that the phonetics 
has been done by doctors. Or journalists.

Please reply to "i.crookstonlmu.ac.uk", and I'll post a summary.

>From James M Scobbie and Moray Nairn

There were 2 FAS papers at the 6th Annual Conference of the =
International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association, Nijmegen, =
October 13-15 1997.

Sally Bates, Martin Duckworth and M. Pevalin 'Foreign Accent Syndrome: =
an English Case Study'.
Nick Miller and Helen O'Sullivan 'What makes Foreign Accent Syndrome =
Foreign?'
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Presumably trauma to the brain from stroke or head injury results in =
articulation which is atypical in such a way that listeners describe the =
result as 'sounding foreign'. Clearly this is a continuum - it doesn't =
make any sense to count the number of cases as if there is a clear =
demarcation between foreign-sounding and non-foreign sounding speech =
resulting from such trauma.