Stronger accent following a stroke: The case of a trilingual with aphasia

Abstract

This study documents patterns of change in speech production in a multilingual with aphasia following a cerebrovascular accident (CVA). EC, a right-handed Hebrew–English–French trilingual man, had a left fronto-temporo-parietal CVA, after which he reported that his (native) Hebrew accent became stronger in his (second language) English. Recordings of his pre- and post-CVA speech permitted an investigation of changes in his accent. In sentence- and segment-listening tasks, native American English listeners (n = 13 and 15, respectively) judged EC's pre- and post-CVA speech. EC's speech was perceived as more foreign-accented, slow, strained and hesitant, but not less intelligible, post-CVA. Acoustic analysis revealed less coarticulation and longer vowel- and word-durations post-CVA. This case extends knowledge about perceptual and acoustic changes in speech production in multilinguals following CVAs. It is suggested that EC's stronger accent post-CVA may have resulted from damage to the neuronal networks that led to impairment in his other language domains.

• multilingual
• Foreign Accent Syndrome
• accentedness ratings
• acoustic analysis
• aphasia

Acknowledgements

This research was supported, in part, by the Dean's Competitive Grant to the first author from the Provost's office at Teachers College, Columbia University, and National Institutes of Health grant #DC009792 to the second author. The authors are grateful to EC for his insights and generosity with his data. Thanks also to Ana de la Iglesia, Marina Faygenbaum, Paula Garcia, Victoria Hatzelis, Joyce Huh, Rebecca Kastl, Lauren Liria, Loraine Obler, Yana Pleshivoy, Cristina Sanchez, Laura Sanchez, Valeriy Shafiro and Winifred Strange.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.