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Foreign accent syndrome | ||
Tags: Mental illness | Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 14 16 May 2011 at 4:41am | IP Logged | ||
No problem, I didn't think you were trying to be disrepectful. Edited by newyorkeric on 16 May 2011 at 4:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6357 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 14 16 May 2011 at 8:41am | IP Logged | ||
Me too. I've always thought that somebody could probably sell a lot of copies of a product that teaches Americans to speak different British accents. Not so sure about vice versa. I'll probably get yelled at for taking this thread off-topic, but can anybody recommend an existing product that I could practice with to get a Brit accent? Do the Assimil English disks use a British speaker? Would learning to pick up a British or Australian accent be easier or harder for me than learning to accurately mimic and pronounce foreign language speakers (since I've been engrained in speaking US English for mucho decades)? The leading characters of "House" (Hugh Laurie - British) and "The Mentalist" (Simon Baker - Australian) speak American flawlessly, and I only found out they were not American after hearing them many times. From Wikipedia: "Singer was very impressed by his performance and commented on how well the "American actor" was able to grasp the character. Singer was not aware that Laurie was British, due to his convincing American accent. Laurie credits the accent to 'a misspent youth [watching] too much TV and too many movies.'" See 2:00 thru 4:40 Simon Baker on David Letterman show See 0:30 thru 2:30 Hugh Laurie on David Leterman show Edited by TerryW on 16 May 2011 at 8:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 14 16 May 2011 at 10:17am | IP Logged | ||
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This book Accents: A Manual for Actors teaches you how to imitate different English accents, including non-native accents. It looks pretty interesting.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 14 16 May 2011 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||
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60 patients is not a lot, and they may even be divided in several groups:
1) those that actually knew the foreign language or dialect well and maybe even spoke it. It still leaves open the question why a certain behaviour (speaking your normal idiolect) is disturbed, but at least the source of the foreign element is known 2) those who a 'linguistically maldiagnosed' by people who just go by their own illfounded stereotypes. For instance a slurred speech might sound Danish or Portuguese to people who don't speak these languages, and Chinese accent could just be the label put on any high-pitched voice that goes up and down at unexpected moments. Jazzboy's "...one woman had an accent that had been described separately as French, Polish, Russian, Spanish, German etc." points towards explanation no. 2. If you can't even pinpoint the source of the accent, then it isn't an accent, but a speech impairment. Or a listener who can't hear the difference between French, Polish, Russian, Spanish and German. Edited by Iversen on 16 May 2011 at 2:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 13 of 14 16 May 2011 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | ||
This is exactly the case, and it's a real shame that people continue to refer to the disorder as "foreign accent syndrome". As you say, the sample size is small. But not only that, there's two types of this disorder -- one's purely a loss of fine motor function, which is accent only (and identical to what happens to most people recovering from a serious stroke, except that it's permanent) and the other is actually a more serious type of aphasia, where the speakers grammar is affected. If you lose the ability to use articles, you may sound like a Chinese person to the uneducated listener, but that is not because of your accent.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6357 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 14 of 14 16 May 2011 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||
Wow, that book looks great, thanks. Finally a case where I won't have to worry about learning vocabulary, reading, or writing, since I'll know all of that already. The "Search Inside This Book" only seems to show the pre- and post-chapter stuff (Contents, Foreward, Intro, Bibliography, etc..) But, since the revised edition comes with 2 CDs, this should be a lot of fun, even if I just try to mimic all of the CD phrases alone and not read the book. Covers a ton of accents. Even a section "London and New York Yiddish Accents Compared." So, I ask you, what's not to like? ;-) Maybe I'll start some new threads: - Is the best method "to learn as an adult immigrant does"? - Help me decide: Would it be better for me to start with "Chicago" or "Liverpool"? Would it be OK to study both at once, or will I get confused? - How do you know when you're fluent in "Cockney"? Edited by TerryW on 16 May 2011 at 6:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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