A Foreign Speech Accent in a Case of Conversion Disorder

Objective: The aim of this paper is to report the psychiatric, neuroradiological and linguistic characteristics in a native speaker of Dutch who developed speech symptoms which strongly resemble Foreign Accent Syndrome. Background: Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare speech production disorder in which the speech of a patient is perceived as foreign by speakers of the same speech community. This syndrome is generally related to focal brain damage. Only in few reported cases the Foreign Accent Syndrome is assumed to be of psychogenic and/or psychotic origin. Method: In addition to clinical and neuroradiological examinations, an extensive test battery of standardized neuropsychological and neurolinguistic investigations was carried out. Two samples of the patient's spontaneous speech were analysed and compared to a 500,000-words reference corpus of 160 normal native speakers of Dutch. Results: The patient had a prominent French accent in her pronunciation of Dutch. This accent had persisted over the past eight years and has become progressively stronger. The foreign qualities of her speech did not only relate to pronunciation, but also to the lexicon, syntax and pragmatics. Structural as well as functional neuroimaging did not reveal evidence that could account for the behavioural symptoms. By contrast psychological investigations indicated conversion disorder. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge this is the first reported case of a foreign accent like syndrome in conversion disorder.

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Speech in the foreign accent syndrome: differential diagnosis between organic and functional cases

Dementia & Neuropsychologia ◽

10.1590/1980-57642020dn14-030015 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 329-332

Author(s):

Simone dos Santos Barreto ◽

Karin Zazo Ortiz

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Speech Intelligibility ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Prior History ◽

Speech Impairments ◽

Foreign Accent Syndrome ◽

History Of ◽

Transient Events ◽

Classic Form

ABSTRACT. Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is an extremely rare disorder, with 112 cases described until 2019. We compare two cases of the foreign accent syndrome in native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese in its classic form (FAS) and psychiatric variant (FALS). Two cases were analyzed: (1) a right-handed, 69-year-old man, with a prior history of stroke, and (2) a right-handed, 43-year-old woman, diagnosed with schizophrenia. They were evaluate for language and speech, including the speech intelligibility. Both patients had speech impairments complaints, similar to a new accent, without previous exposure to a foreign language. However, the onset of the speech disorder was sudden in case 1 and insidious and with transient events in case 2, with speech intelligibility scores of 95.5 and 55.3% respectively. Besides neurologic impairment, the clinical presentation of FALS was extremely severe and differed to that expected in FAS cases, in which speech intelligibility is preserved.

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Comparing learners’ and native speakers’ use of collocations in written Spanish

IRAL - International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching ◽

10.1515/iral-2016-0103 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 56 (4) ◽

pp. 401-426

Author(s):

Marcos García Salido ◽

Marcos Garcia

Keyword(s):

Mutual Information ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Advanced Learners ◽

Frequency Information ◽

Two Samples ◽

Reference Corpus

Abstract This article compares the use of collocations in texts written by native speakers and advanced learners of Spanish. The collocations studied were first identified in the sample texts on the grounds of phraseological criteria and subsequently assigned frequency information corresponding to their occurrence in a reference corpus of Spanish. The distribution of collocations with different frequency of co-occurrence and mutual information scores in the texts of the two samples was then compared, as was their proportion in the collocation repertoire of native speakers and learners. The study revealed significant differences both in terms of frequency and mutual information.

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English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in ESP contexts. Students' attitudes towards non-native speech and analysis of teaching materials

Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses ◽

10.14198/raei.2017.30.02 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 27

Author(s):

Yolanda Joy Calvo-Benzies

Keyword(s):

Native Speakers ◽

Native Speaker ◽

Law Students ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Teaching Materials ◽

Lingua Franca ◽

Native Speakers Of English ◽

Native Speech ◽

Students Attitudes ◽

Analysis Of Teaching

This paper focuses on non-native accents in ESP classrooms. In particular it looks at native and non-native speakers of English accents used in the audio material accompanying six ESP textbooks. In a second study, a group of undergraduate ESP students of Law and Tourism were asked to assess some of the non-native speakers accents found in these materials, focussing on aspects such as fluency, pronunciation, intelligibility and foreign accent. More specifically, they were asked to rate the following non-native accents of speakers in English: French, German, Polish, Chinese and Spanish. Results from the first part of the study show that native speaker models continue to be present in ESP textbooks to a far higher degree than non-native ones. In the second part, the non-native accents that students rated most positively were those of German and Polish speakers, and those seen in the most negative terms were French and Spanish. In general, the Law students tended to value native accents more than non-native ones, whereas students of Tourism broadly accept both native and non-native accents.

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Multidisciplinary Assessment and Diagnosis of Conversion Disorder in a Patient with Foreign Accent Syndrome

Behavioural Neurology ◽

10.1155/2011/786560 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 245-255 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Harrison N. Jones ◽

Tyler J. Story ◽

Timothy A. Collins ◽

Daniel DeJoy ◽

Christopher L. Edwards

Keyword(s):

Language Production ◽

Brain Injuries ◽

Clinical History ◽

Conversion Disorder ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Motor Speech ◽

Foreign Accent Syndrome ◽

Psychiatric Conditions ◽

Subcortical Regions ◽

Acute Aphasia

Multiple reports have described patients with disordered articulation and prosody, often following acute aphasia, dysarthria, or apraxia of speech, which results in the perception by listeners of a foreign-like accent. These features led to the term foreign accent syndrome (FAS), a speech disorder with perceptual features that suggest an indistinct, non-native speaking accent. Also correctly known as psuedoforeign accent, the speech does not typically match a specific foreign accent, but is rather a constellation of speech features that result in the perception of a foreign accent by listeners. The primary etiologies of FAS are cerebrovascular accidents or traumatic brain injuries which affect cortical and subcortical regions critical to expressive speech and language production. Far fewer cases of FAS associated with psychiatric conditions have been reported. We will present the clinical history, neurological examination, neuropsychological assessment, cognitive-behavioral and biofeedback assessments, and motor speech examination of a patient with FAS without a known vascular, traumatic, or infectious precipitant. Repeated multidisciplinary examinations of this patient provided convergent evidence in support of FAS secondary to conversion disorder. We discuss these findings and their implications for evaluation and treatment of rare neurological and psychiatric conditions.

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Native Speaker Perceptions of Accented Speech: The English Pronunciation of Macedonian EFL Learners

Research in Language ◽

10.2478/v10015-010-0004-7 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 41-61 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Anastazija Kirkova-Naskova

Keyword(s):

Web Application ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Native Speaker ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Point Scale ◽

Efl Learners ◽

Accented Speech ◽

English Pronunciation ◽

Native Speakers Of English ◽

Result Analysis

The paper reports on the results of a study that aimed to describe the vocalic and consonantal features of the English pronunciation of Macedonian EFL learners as perceived by native speakers of English and to find out whether native speakers who speak different standard variants of English perceive the same segments as non-native. A specially designed computer web application was employed to gather two types of data: a) quantitative (frequency of segment variables and global foreign accent ratings on a 5-point scale), and b) qualitative (open-ended questions). The result analysis points out to three most frequent markers of foreign accent in the English speech of Macedonian EFL learners: final obstruent devoicing, vowel shortening and substitution of English dental fricatives with Macedonian dental plosives. It also reflects additional phonetic aspects poorly explained in the available reference literature such as allophonic distributional differences between the two languages and intonational mismatch.

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The L2 acquisition of a phonological variable: the case of /l/ deletion in French

Journal of French Language Studies ◽

10.1017/s0959269506002298 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 1-24 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

MARTIN HOWARD ◽

ISABELLE LEMÉE ◽

VERA REGAN

Keyword(s):

Study Abroad ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Native Speaker ◽

Speech Community ◽

Phonological Variation ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Sociolinguistic Variation ◽

Quantitative Results ◽

Native Speech

This article is situated within the recent strand of SLA research which applies variationist sociolinguistic methods to the study of the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation by the L2 speaker. Whilst that research has tended to focus on the study of morphological and morphosyntactic variables, this article aims to investigate a number of acquisitional trends identified in previous research in relation to phonological variation, namely the variable deletion of /l/ by Irish advanced L2 speakers of French in both an instructed and study abroad environment. Based on quantitative results using GoldVarb 2001, the study further illuminates the difficulty that the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation poses to the instructed L2 speaker, who is found to make minimal use of informal sociolinguistic variants. In contrast, contact with native speakers in the native speech community is seen to allow the L2 speaker to make considerable sociolinguistic gains, not only in relation to the acquisition of the informal variant in itself, but also in relation to the underlying native speaker grammatical system as indicated by the constraint ordering at work behind use of the variable.

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Foreign accent syndrome due to conversion disorder: Phonetic analyses and clinical course

Journal of Neurolinguistics ◽

10.1016/j.jneuroling.2009.08.001 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 28-43 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Katarina L. Haley ◽

Heidi L. Roth ◽

Nancy Helm-Estabrooks ◽

Antje Thiessen

Keyword(s):

Clinical Course ◽

Conversion Disorder ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Foreign Accent Syndrome

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Foreign accent in advanced learners

EUROSLA Yearbook ◽

10.1075/eurosla.7.10mun ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 171-190 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Carmen Muñoz ◽

David Singleton

Keyword(s):

English Language ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Native Speaker ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Control Group ◽

Advanced Learners ◽

Language Background ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Oral Retelling ◽

Native Speakers Of English

Research has generally found age of learning (AOL) (i.e., age of initial significant L2 exposure) to predict degree of foreign accent (FA), while length of residence (LOR) has sometimes been seen as simply a corollary of AOL. The subjects in the present study were twelve late L2 learners of English with an average AOL of 22.5 and an average LOR of 10, plus a native-speaker control group. All the English-L2 subjects had Spanish and/or Catalan as L1. Short extracts were taken from their oral retelling of a film narrative and judged for FA by four native speakers of English. Language background data were elicited by questionnaire and interview. A significant difference overall emerged between native speakers and non-natives in terms of FA ratings. However, two of the learners scored within the native-speaker range. The discussion examines the possible influence of an array of factors on degree of FA, and explores what might underlie the native-like performance of the two most successful learners.

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The perception of native vs. non-native Danish speech: Bent and Bradlow’s matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit revisited

Scandinavian Philology ◽

10.21638/11701/spbu21.2020.204 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 284-296

Author(s):

Paweł Korpal ◽

◽

Mikołaj Sobkowiak ◽

Keyword(s):

Speech Intelligibility ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Native Speaker ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Valuable Insight ◽

Accented Speech ◽

Polish Language ◽

Native Speech ◽

Insight Into ◽

Language Pair

The main objective of the study was to test the applicability of Bent and Bradlow’s matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit to the Danish-Polish language pair. We aimed to verify whether it was easier for Polish students of Danish to understand a Danish native speaker or a Polish speaker with a proficient command of Danish. Sixteen Polish students, divided into two groups of eight, listened to two recordings of two Danish texts: one recorded by a native speaker of Danish and the other one — by a native speaker of Polish who is a graduate of Danish philology from a Polish university. Before the experiment, all of the recordings were evaluated in terms of traces of foreign accent using a 7-point Likert scale, the experts being native speakers of Danish. The evaluators assessed the Polish native speaker’s pronunciation as proficient, but they identified certain segmental and suprasegmental features in his speech that are common indicators of a foreign accent in Danish. During the experiment, participants were asked to fill in each recording transcript with twenty missing words. The analysis of the results revealed that the participants scored higher when listening to the text recorded by the Polish speaker. Hence, the matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit was observed in a study using Polish as L1 (native language) and Danish as a foreign language. The study may provide a valuable insight into the question of non-native speech perception, foreign-accented speech and the veracity of the matched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for the Polish–Danish language pair.

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