Accent attribution in speakers with Foreign Accent Syndrome

PurposeThe main aim of this experiment was to investigate the perception of Foreign Accent Syndrome in comparison to speakers with an authentic foreign accent.MethodThree groups of listeners attributed accents to conversational speech samples of 5 FAS speakers which were embedded amongst those of 5 speakers with a real foreign accent and 5 native speaker controls. The listening panels differed in their familiarity with foreign accented speech and speech pathology.ResultsThe findings indicate that listeners’ perceptual responses to the three groups of speakers were essentially different at all levels of analysis. The native speaker controls were unequivocally recognized as native speakers of Dutch while the speakers with a real foreign accent were very reliably assessed as non-native speakers. The speakers with Foreign Accent Syndrome, however, were in some sense perceived as foreign and in some sense as native by listeners, but not as foreign as speakers with a real foreign accent nor as native as real native speakers. These results are accounted for in terms of a misinterpretation of markers of speech pathology as markers regional affiliation.ConclusionsThe findings of the experiment are consistent with the idea that the very nature of the foreign accent is different in both groups of speakers, although it cannot be fully excluded that the foreign impression in the two groups is one of degree.Learning outcomes: Readers are able to: (1) define Foreign Accent Syndrome as a motor speech disorder and identify the different subtypes of FAS, (2) describe the most important differences in listeners’ perceptual reactions to FAS and real foreign accents, and (3) discuss the findings of the present study in relation to other studies investigating accent attribution in FAS.

► Listeners perceive foreign accents in FAS differently than in real foreign accents.
► Listener familiarity with foreign accents affects FAS accent identification.
► Foreign accent perception in FAS can be accounted for by a misinterpretation of speech pathology markers as markers of regional affiliation.