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'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)

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Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)

#4

Post by ggm »

A note to writers, when a stroke or other brain injury victim relearns speech the worst comparison you can make is "speaking french" or "like Steffi Graf" because it's not an acquired foreign accent syndrome, it's a brain injury.

It's a speech impairment. They're relearning how to form words. Just because one culture forms a rhotic R one way and another culture forms it another way or even deprecates it doesn't make you speak in their accent.

Myabe a bit pedantic but I've always disliked this "my husband spoke French after his stroke" thing.

I admit .. "like Steffi Graff" signals how it sounds, at least to somebody. My friends with stroke speech impairment spoke like they'd had dental local anaesthetic, or were talking through a mouthful of marbles. It's as if they had lost control of some of the finer grained muscles related to speech and had the gross motor skills for the breath, the vocal cords, and the jaw only.

Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)

#6

Post by 46493168 »

ggm wrote: post #4

A note to writers, when a stroke or other brain injury victim relearns speech the worst comparison you can make is "speaking french" or "like Steffi Graf" because it's not an acquired foreign accent syndrome, it's a brain injury. It's a speech impairment. They're relearning how to form words. Just because one culture forms a rhotic R one way and another culture forms it another way or even deprecates it doesn't make…

I totally agree with what you're saying, but just to note that in this article, the person who had the stroke is describing the experience. Whether someone told her that or whether she heard it herself, she found it meaningful enough to describe it that way herself.

Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)

#7

Post by ggm »

46493168 wrote: post #6
ggm wrote: post #4

A note to writers, when a stroke or other brain injury victim relearns speech the worst comparison you can make is "speaking french" or "like Steffi Graf" because it's not an acquired foreign accent syndrome, it's a brain injury. It's a speech impairment. They're relearning how to form words. Just because one culture forms a rhotic R one way and another culture forms it another way or even deprecates it doesn't make…

I totally agree with what you're saying, but just to note that in this article, the person who had the stroke is describing the experience. Whether someone told her that or whether she heard it herself, she found it meaningful enough to describe it that way herself.

yes. I suspect it's a common approach, but when it becomes the News of the Weird headline it does my head in.

Re: 'My Words Are Like an Uncontrollable Dog': On Life with Nonfluent Aphasia (2025)

#8

Post by totetsu »

There is something similar that I experienced by learning a second language through exposure and not doing much precision based practice. Having words that you can understand when you hear but can’t use yourself is one thing, but when you start speaking words (that are actually correct to what you want to say) that you don’t understand when hearing yourself it’s quite disorientating.
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