|
12 Mar 09 - 02:50 PM (#2587346) Subject: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: GUEST,leeneia Like many other catters, I'm interested in language. Parade Magazine week an interview with English actress Emily Blunt last week. Emily has been in 'more than a dozen' movies. Emily said that as a child, she had a severe stammer, the source of much unhappiness. But then, at 12, she was in a school play. To quote Emily, "I had a wonderful teacher who encouraged me to try a different accent from what I normally talk in. I don't know why it freed my voice, but it did." I consider that amazing. That a slight modification of her mother tongue (which is what an accent is) could free her from a severe speech problem. Evidently, her stammer wasn't related to a problem with expressing concepts, it had to do with pronouncing sounds. Since reading that, I've looked up 'stammer' and 'stutter.' There is some overlap in the words, but stammering seems to mean having long pauses and interruptions in speech, while stuttering mostly involves repetition of sounds. I wonder what Noam Chomsky [sp?] would make of all this. |
|
12 Mar 09 - 03:14 PM (#2587366) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: Wesley S Singing too. I'm reminded of country singer Mel Tillis who stammers when he talks. But when he sings - no hesitation at all. |
|
12 Mar 09 - 04:09 PM (#2587410) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: DMcG That is extremely common with stammering - it certainly is for me. Ditto performing in a play, singing, or often reading out loud in a formal context. I know one person who was completely fluent as long as he spoke in a broad Glaswegian accent. He was, of course, a Southerner who had never been further north than Leeds. I suspect the reason is that you are in a different persona. |
|
12 Mar 09 - 11:38 PM (#2587731) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: GUEST,leeneia And I suppose a different persona uses different cells of the brain... I know a man of about 60 who has a serious stammer, by which I mean long pauses while he tries to say the next word. The problem started after an appendectomy at the age of nine, so he may have suffered brain damage in the operation. On this very screen I see an ad which says "How to Stop Stammering. 5-day intensive stutter-free speech..." I want to ask them how they can help anyone if they don't know the diff between stammer and stutter. |
|
13 Mar 09 - 12:29 AM (#2587743) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: Sandra in Sydney I worked with a girl who could barely get words out - but she sang like an angel. Singing & talking come from different areas of the brain. I remember posting this on a earlier thread about singing & stuttering/stammering - maybe someone can locate it. sandra |
|
13 Mar 09 - 04:17 AM (#2587799) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: DMcG I think the singing/reciting plays & poems/reading the lesson in Church etc are somewhat different to the accent aspect. In all those cases it is somebody else's words, not yours, so your pyschological relationship with the words is very different. Almost all the techniques for overcoming a stammer rely on your modifying the way you speak words. Virtually all of them work, but you (that is I!) have to concentrate so hard on how you are saying things that it is extremely difficult to say anything. One common approach is what is called 'syllable timed speech'. This is simply to make sure every syllable in every word takes the same length of time, making you sound something like a Dalek. I recommend you all to try speaking that way for at least half and hour to discover why it both does and does not work. (It is, on the other hand, handy to use on occasions when things get too bad to cope with.) |
|
13 Mar 09 - 10:57 AM (#2587978) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: GUEST,leeneia Thanks, DMcG. It is good to hear about these things from one who's been through all this. I'll take your word for it on the syllable-timed speech. It sure doesn't sound like fun. But as you say, if needs must... I have a friend with initials MMcG. Are you related? :) ======== Here'a something I've just wondered. If a person stutters or stammers in the native tongue, do they stutter or stammer when speaking a foreign language? |
|
13 Mar 09 - 03:23 PM (#2588202) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: Mrrzy I thought a stammer was a British stutter? |
|
13 Mar 09 - 04:03 PM (#2588232) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: DMcG As far as I know, there isn't a very clear demarkation between the two. The 1929 edition of the 20 volume edition of Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines 'stutter' as 'stammer', and cross reference stammers back to stutter. So outside of medical parlance, the two can be considered equivalent. Generally, the medics seem to regard stuttering as hesitancies and stammering as repetitions, but I'd hate to claim that was universal. |
|
13 Mar 09 - 07:28 PM (#2588411) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: Mrrzy I've also heard of stutterers/stammerers who could speak fluidly if they were in another language, even if their accent was the same. Maybe it's just thinking about talking? |
|
13 Mar 09 - 09:50 PM (#2588490) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: GUEST,Smokey Performance uses a different part of the brain from that used in everyday verbal communication, as does use of a foreign language. |
|
14 Mar 09 - 03:51 AM (#2588557) Subject: RE: BS: a stammer & an accent. interesting From: DMcG Yes it does, but it is important to understand that even so the vast majority of the parts of the brain used are used for both and there is no evidence of a common physical cause of stammering. That is, while there are many types of brain damage - strokes etc - that can lead to stammering the vast majority of people who stammer have undamaged brains, so far as anyone has been able to tell. The causes seem to be psychological and habitual rather than physical. The foreign language one is confusing; in my experience there is no very strong pattern: I know quite a few people who stammer in both and other who only stammer in their native language. While hesitating is of course common, I have never heard of anyone who only stammers in a foreign language. |