Imagine for a moment that you are alone with your loved one on a Saturday night. While watching a movie, you begin to feel strange. Suddenly you are unable to move your leg, or perhaps even your face. The images on the television screen double, and out of nowhere you get an agonizing headache. Your significant other seems frantic and is speaking to you, but you do not understand what they are saying, and cannot find it possible to reply. It is almost as if you are locked inside your own body (Rodriguez).
Later you awake in the hospital and have had a stroke. Someone is speaking in a strange accent, Russian, but no one else is in the room except your loved one. The strange accent seems to be coming from your own mouth. The doctor tells you that there was damage to Broca’s area in your brain and you have suffered aphasia. This specific aphasia is called Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).
In a recent study Foreign Accent Syndrome was defined as, “a rare disorder characterized by the emergence of new prosodic features that listeners perceive as a foreign accent, is usually due to left hemisphere lesion or dysfunction (Christopha, de Freitasa, dos Santos, Lima, Arau´jo, & Carota, 2004). So it is not actually the speaker having a new accent. In reality it is the listener who hears the accent. Hearing a foreign accent is only perception. Aphasia is often sensationalized, and many believe that these people have acquired a new accent out of thin air (Stollznow, 2011). This is in keeping with the belief that losing a sense can somehow heighten the remaining senses to compensate for this loss (Stollznow, 2011). Aphasia is not a superhuman power; it is a manifestation of brain damage (Stollznow, 2011). The term was first used in 1919 by a Ger...
... middle of paper ...
...in.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_10/d_10_p/d_10_p_lan/d_10_p_lan.html#3
Christopha, D. H., de Freitasa, G. R., dos Santos, D. P., Lima, M. S., Arau´jo, A. C., & Carota, A. (2004). Different Perceived Foreign Accents in One Patient after Prerolandic Hematoma. 198-201.
Hill, A. (2010, April 20). The condition that gave me a Chinese accent. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from guardian.co.uk: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/20/foreign-accent-syndrome
Morris, S. (2010, September 14). Woman's migraine gave her French accent. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from guardian.co.uk: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/14/woman-awoke-migraine-french-accent
Rodriguez, D. (n.d.). Am I Having a Stroke? Retrieved March 29, 2011, from Everyday Health: http://www.everydayhealth.com/stroke/am-i-having-a-stroke.aspx
Stollznow, K. (2011). The Accidental Accent. Skeptic , 16 (2), 6-7.
mother as an example of having an accent and her mother was from Jamaica. In World War I,
Her principal was described as "maniacal" (Wong 1). Wong identified speaking Chinese as an "embarrassment" (Wong 2). The words she chose
The two types of aphasia discussed in class is non-fluent aphasia and fluent aphasia. Aphasia can occur when there is damage to the left hemisphere of the brain, which is the language center of the brain. People with non-fluent aphasia will say or sign random words, there will be little or no function words/signs, similar to the telegraphic stage of language development. People with fluent aphasia will be able to produce sentences with function words, but the sentences will contain miss-selected words/signs.
Chang Rae-Lee, author of "Mute in an English-Only World," moved to America from Korea when he was only six or seven years old. He adopted the English language quickly, as most children do, but his mother continued to struggle. "For her, the English language…usually meant trouble and a good dose of shame and sometimes real hurt" (Lee 586). It is obvious, though, that his mother was persistent in her attempt to learn English and deal with her limited culture experience, as Lee accounts of her using English flash cards, phrase books and a pocket workbook illustrated with stick-people figures. Lee sympathetically connects with the audience through his mother, and forces them to make a personal conclusion when he ends the article with a lingering question in the reader’s mind; what if they had seen her struggling? Would they have sat back and watched or stepped up to help?
Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker expresses prominent themes of language and racial identity. Chang-Rae Lee focuses on the struggles that Asian Americans have to face and endure in American society. He illustrates and shows readers throughout the novel of what it really means to be native of America; that true nativity of a person does not simply entail the fact that they are from a certain place, but rather, the fluency of a language verifies one’s defense of where they are native. What is meant by possessing nativity of America would be one’s citizenship and legality of the country. Native Speaker suggests that if one looks different or has the slightest indication that one should have an accent, they will be viewed not as a native of America, but instead as an alien, outsider, and the like. Therefore, Asian Americans and other immigrants feel the need to mask their true identity and imitate the native language as an attempt to fit into the mold that makes up what people would define how a native of America is like. Throughout the novel, Henry Park attempts to mask his Korean accent in hopes to blend in as an American native. Chang-Rae Lee suggests that a person who appears to have an accent is automatically marked as someone who is not native to America. Language directly reveals where a person is native of and people can immediately identify one as an alien, immigrant, or simply, one who is not American. Asian Americans as well as other immigrants feel the need to try and hide their cultural identity in order to be deemed as a native of America in the eyes of others. Since one’s language gives away the place where one is native to, immigrants feel the need to attempt to mask their accents in hopes that they sound fluent ...
In my life I have seen how even while speaking the same language there can be communication problems. Adding the inability to speck the same language and then the complexity of describing medical conditions, I can see how the situation could turn out poorly and cause troubling effects. This chapter has helped me better understand why the Hmon...
Pallier, C. (2003). Brain Imaging of Language Plasticity in Adopted Adults: Can a Second Language Replace the First? Cerebral Cortex, 13(2), 155-161. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/cercor/13.2.155
The article opens up with an explanation as to what the method of coaching is. According to Holland, “life coaching”, as it is called, is considered to be a variant of typical counseling. Coaching is in its early stages (as of 2007), yet it is used in developments and processes that are designed to help individuals with aphasia live their lives to the fullest and improve their quality of life. The work of Goldsmith (an earlier mentioned practitioner) is the author’s main interest. Goldsmith’s approach involves what one may call a “Buddhist” way of thinking; meaning change is seen as a positive thing. Speech-language pathologists place their trust in their client’s ability to take on new skills, arrange their new language capabilities, and acquire new problem-solving tactics.
Aphasia can be defined as a disorder that is caused by damage to parts of the brain that are responsible for language (“Aphasia” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia is a type of fluent aphasia (with the other type being nonfluent). It is named after Carl Wernicke who described the disorder as “an amnesiac disorder characterized by fluent but disordered speech, with a similar disorder in writing, and impaired understanding of oral speech and reading” (“Wernicke’s” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia can also be known as sensory aphasia, fluent aphasia, or receptive aphasia. It is a type of aphasia that is caused by damage to Wernicke’s area in the brain, in the posterior part of the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere. This area of the brain contains motor neurons responsible for the understanding of spoken language and is believed to be the receptive language center (“Rogers” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia can be most efficiently defined as a fluent language disorder commonly caused by strokes and characterized by difficulty comprehending spoken language and producing meaningful speech and writing which is both assessable by an SLP and treatable by a variety of methods.
Have you ever experienced an unbearable pain in your head that could worsen with just the sound of a single pen falling to the floor or cringed at the sight of a single light switch flipping on that could aggravate your already spotty vision? Have you ever felt a wave of nausea consume your body that could cause your previous meal to be anywhere but your stomach?
The video “American Tongues” is about variety of English dialect in America, and people still carry prejudice and stereotypes in people’s accents and dialects. These accent and dialects are not limited in pronunciation. There are different words, phrases and grammars in their dialects, therefore, some people are noticed where they are from. As a premise, everyone has an accent. However, some people believe they don’t have an accent because people around them have the exact same accent and dialect in their community. Therefore, they haven’t noticed differences. In the video, there was a scene of a woman was correcting her accent for work to speak “standard dialect”. It was required for her to speak “standard dialect” for work because when she was out of her original community where
“… There is a feeling of strange intoxication and shifting consciousness with minor perceptual changes. There may also be strong physical effects, including respiratory pressure, muscle tension (especially face and neck muscles), and queasiness or possible nausea… After this the state of altered consciousness begins to manifest itself…..among the possible occurences are feelings of inner tranquility, oneness with life, heightened awareness, and rapid thought flow…these effects will deepen and become more visual. Colors may become more intense. Halos and auras may appear about things. Objects
Another difficulty cultures deal with is language and the way people speak. In some cases, people struggle to belong by making changes in the way they speak the English language just to be assimilated. They attempt to use words and letters, as well as body language that fit in the norm; all in an attempt to denounce their original intonation and style of pronunciation. One ...
In the United States today, a nurse is more likely to encounter patients who speak a language that is different from their own. This kind of intercultural difference poses a formidable communication challenge, as one’s ability to communicate will depend on whether one can understand one another's verbal and nonverbal codes (Jandt, 2012).
In the last few decades, the notion of language and brain has been highlighted in different scientific fields such as: neurology, cognitive science, linguistics biology, technology and finally education.