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Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>
almaak.usc.edu>I received over 40 responses to my query about Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS); many thanks to all of them. It turns out that a similar query was posted on the Linguist List by Paul Chapin in 1994; his summary of the responses he received is available in issue 5.69. Since there has been more recent work, including the investigation of new cases, it may nonetheless be useful to update that summary. And judging by some of the responses I received, this is an area where some consciousness raising may not be amiss; certainly the responses have raised my consciousness! FAS is a genuine phenomenon. It is a phonological disruption of speech resulting from brain trauma. The speech of someone with FAS may be unaffected in grammar and lexicon; thus, it is intelligible. FAS affects the pronunciation of segments, but the more significant effect seems to be on prosody, and it is hypothesized that the segmental effects may be results of the prosodic disruption. The person with FAS appears to speak with an "accent" different from that with which they spoke before. This is typically perceived as a "foreign accent", though listeners are often unable to agree on exactly what foreign accent it is. The person with FAS retains many features of their original accent unchanged, e.g. a recent case investigated by Nick Miller and Helen O'Sullivan is of someone who originally spoke with a Tyneside accent, still retains many distinctive features of a Tyneside accent, but has acquired certain other features, such as an added vowel after word-final consonants, that give listeners the impression of an Italian accent. The number of documented cases is, incidentally, considerably in excess of a dozen. Most of the studies have been concerned with the neurology and phonetics of FAS. Topics on the social psychology side also seem to be interesting, though less well investigated. For instance, what does it mean to "speak with a foreign accent", taking the indefinite article first in its nonspecific sense, then its specific sense? On the former, maybe if members of a speech community agree that X speaks with a foreign accent, then X does. The latter is more difficult--in part, it's presumably a question of who you're trying to "fool". One factor that does recur in several cases of FAS is that those with the syndrome are often very distressed at their change in accent, and often feel (or indeed: are) rejected by what they have hitherto considered their social network. (The first case discussed in detail was of a Norwegian who acquired a German accent--during the Second World War.) (Note that there is a distinct phenomenon whereby a brain trauma might lead someone to revert to an accent they had spoken with earlier in life.) Herewith some further references. I have to admit I haven't had a chance to follow all of them up yet. I haven't been able to track down the original Daily Telegraph article, but it is in turn reported on by Reuters, accessible on the web under: http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/971013/odd/stories/language_1.html. Doing a search on "foreign accent syndrome" on the web does, incidentally, produce a fair amount of useful information. One respondent suggested also consulting Medline. The following were provided by Mark Davies: http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/971013/odd/stories/language_1.html http://my.excite.com/News/971013/10.ODD-LANGUAGE.html http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=5410279-264 Same sampling to news reports re. the Scottish woman / South African accent story http://www.som1.ab.umd.edu/otola/STONE.HTML Web page for Prof. Maureen Stone, who works with FAS http://www.utdallas.edu/~wkatz/listpub.html Vita for William Katz, who has studied FAS (his homepage at http://www.utdallas.edu/~wkatz/) http://www.mrc-apu.cam.ac.uk/personal/sophie.scott/ Homepage for Sophie Scott, who studies FAS http://www.speech.kth.se/info/progindex.html Program for a conference where FAS is discussed http://ftp.let.rug.nl/Linguistics/Looyenga/Clcg/program.htm Another conference program with FAS listed http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~louise/cling_blurb.html Class syllabus with FAS as one of its topics http://www.hf.uio.no/iks/info/aarsrapport96/v1.html Publication list mentioning FAS http://speakeasy.org/misc/11-90.html Notice of Baltimore man acquiring a Norwegian accent The following non-cyber references include those given by Paul Chapin. Many of them were provided by Jane Edwards, from PsycINFO Database (which also includes abstracts), and Matti Lehtihalmes: Moonis, M.; Swearer, J. M.; Blumstein, S. E.; Kurowski, K.; and others. Foreign accent syndrome following a closed head injury: Perfusion on single photon emission tomography with normal magnetic resonance imaging. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, & Behavioral Neurology, 1996 Oct, v9 (n4):272-279. Moen, Inger. Monrad-Krohn's foreign accent syndrome case. IN: Classic cases in neuropsychology. Brain damage, behaviour and cognition series.; Chris Code, Claus-W. Wallesch, Yves Joanette, Andre Roch Lecours, Eds. Psychology/Erlbaum (UK) Taylor & Francis Ltd, Hove, England. 1996. p. 159-171. Kurowski, Kathleen M.; Blumstein, Sheila E.; Alexander, Michael. The foreign accent syndrome: A reconsideration. Brain & Language, 1996 Jul, v54 (n1):1-25. Berthier, Marcelo L. Foreign accent syndrome. Neurology, 1994 May, v44 (n5):990-991. Takayama, Yoshihiro; Sugishita, Morihiro; Kido, T.; Ogawa, M.; and others. A case of foreign accent syndrome without aphasia caused by a lesion of the left precentral gyrus. Neurology, 1993 Jul, v43 (n7):1361-1363. Ingram, John C.; McCormack, Paul F.; Kennedy, Meredith. Phonetic analysis of a case of foreign accent syndrome. Journal of Phonetics, 1992 Oct, v20 (n4):457-474. Gurd, J. M.; Bessell, N. J.; Bladon, R. A.; Bamford, J. M. A case of foreign accent syndrome, with follow-up clinical, neuropsychological and phonetic descriptions. Neuropsychologia, 1988, v26 (n2):237-251. Blumstein, Sheila E.; Alexander, Michael P.; Ryalls, John H.; Katz, William; and others. On the nature of the foreign accent syndrome: A case study. Brain & Language, 1987 Jul, v31 (n2):215-244. Ardila et al. Foreign accent: an aphasic epiphenomenon? Aphasiology 1988;2:493-499. Berthier et al. Foreign accent syndrome: behavioural and anatomica findings in recovered and non-recovered patients. Aphasiology 1991;5:129-147. Graff-Radford et al. An unlearned foreign accent in a patient with aphasia. Brain and Language 1986;28:86-94. Moen I. A case of the foreign accent syndrome. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 1990;4:295-302. Ryalls J, Reignvang I. Some further notes on Monrad-Krohn's case study of foreign accent syndrome. Folia Phoniatr 1985;37:160-162. Blumstein, Sheila, "Phonological Deficits in Aphasia: Theoretical Perspectives", Chapter 2 of Caramazza (ed.), 1990 People currently working on FAS include: Arnold Aronson (Mayo Clinic) John Coleman (U of Oxford) Jana Dankovicova (U of Oxford) Nick Miller (University of Newcastle on Tyne) Helen O'Sullivan (University of Newcastle on Tyne) S. Bates (University College of St. Mark & St. John, Plymouth, UK) (Miller and O'Sullivan and (separately) Bates reported on two cases at a recent international clinical linguistics and phonetics conference in Nijmegen.) - Bernard Comrie Dept of Linguistics GFS-301 tel +1 213 740 3674 University of Southern California fax +1 213 740 9306 Los Angeles, CA 90089-1693, USA e-mail comrieMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue