Foreign accent syndrome

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Overview[edit | edit source]

Foreign accent syndrome is a rare medical condition that usually occurs as a rare side effect of severe brain injury, such as a stroke or a head injury. As of 1996, there had been fewer than 15 reported cases of the syndrome.^[1]

Description[edit | edit source]

The syndrome causes people to speak their native language as if they had a foreign accent; for example, an American native speaker might speak with a French-sounding 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 the speech to have a different sounding accent. The change in speech is not the result of people suffering from the syndrome adopting or imitating any accent; this is merely the perception of people who hear the sufferer speak.

The first recorded incidence of FAS was in a Czech studied in 1919.^[2] A well-known case of foreign accent syndrome occurred in Norway in 1941 after a young woman, Astrid L., suffered a head injury from shrapnel during an air-raid. After apparently recovering from the injury she was left with what sounded like a strong German accent and was shunned by her fellow Norwegians.^[3]

Another case of foreign accent syndrome occurred to Linda Walker, a 60 year old woman from the Newcastle area. After a stroke, her normal Geordie accent was transformed and has been variously described as resembling a Jamaican, as well as a French Canadian, and a Slovak accent. She was interviewed by BBC News 24 [2] and appeared on the Richard and Judy show in the UK in July 2006 to speak of her ordeal.

Usually, it is very traumatic for stroke patients such as these to find that their accent has unexpectedly changed.

References[edit | edit source]

Dankovičová J, Gurd JM, Marshall JC, MacMahon MKC, Stuart-Smith J, Coleman JS, Slater A. Aspects of non-native pronunciation in a case of altered accent following stroke (foreign accent syndrome). Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 2001;15:195-218.
Gurd JM, Bessell NJ, Bladon RA, Bamford JM. A case of foreign accent syndrome, with follow-up clinical, neuropsychological and phonetic descriptions. Neuropsychologia 1988;26:237-51. PMID 3399041
Gurd JM, Coleman JS, Costello A, Marshall JC. Organic or functional? A new case of foreign accent syndrome. Cortex 2001;37:715-8. PMID 11804223 PSHAW

Notes[edit | edit source]

↑ Kurowski KM, Blumstein SE, Alexander M. (1996). "The foreign accent syndrome: a reconsideration," Brain Lang., 54(1), 1-25.
↑ Pick, A. 1919. Über Änderungen des Sprachcharakters als Begleiterscheinung aphasicher Störungen. Zeitschrift für gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie, 45, 230–241.
↑ Monrad-Krohn, G. H. "Dysprosody or Altered 'Melody of Language'." Brain 70 (1947): 405-15.

External links[edit | edit source]

"Stroke gives woman British accent" at BBC News, 25 November 2003.
"Stroke gives man Italian accent" at BBC Radio 4 Home Truths, 4 November 2005.
"Stroke gives woman foreign accent" at BBC News, 4 July 2006.
"Jamaican accent for Geordie woman" at ITV News, 4 July 2006.
"Czech falls off motorbike, wakes up with British accent" at The Register, 14 September 2007.
"I woke up with a foreign accent" at ABC News.
Journal of Neurolinguistics, Volume 19, Issue 5. Special issue on foreign accent syndrome.
http://www.utdallas.edu/research/FAS" Foreign Accent Syndrome Support Site created by researchers at University of Texas at Dallas.