Monday, 1 October 2012
Like Strangers in Their Own Land
Fewer than 100 cases of foreign accent syndrome, have been identified worldwide, but it is certainly one of the strangest things that can happen to anyone. From one day to the next, a person wakes up speaking with what sounds like an accent from another country.
But in fact, this similarity is merely random. Scientists now know that foreign accent syndrome is actually a particular kind of aphasia that produces slight alterations in the prosody of language. Listeners then perceive these unusual variations in the rhythm and meolody of the person’s speech as a foreign accent. (more…)
From Thought to Language | Comments Closed