Imagine for a moment that you are alone with your loved one on a Saturday night. While watching a movie, you start to feel strange. Suddenly you are no longer able to move your leg, and maybe not even your face. The images on the television screen double and suddenly you get an excruciating headache. Your significant other seems frantic and is talking to you, but you don't understand what he or she is saying and can't respond. It's almost like you're locked in your own body (Rodriguez). Later you wake up in the hospital and you've had a stroke. Someone speaks with a strange accent, Russian, but there is no one else in the room except the loved one. The strange accent seems to come from your own mouth. The doctor tells you that there has been damage to Broca's area in your brain and that you have suffered from 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, usually due to a left hemisphere lesion or dysfunction (Christopha, de Freitasa , dos Santos, Lima, Arau´jo and Carota, 2004). So it is actually not about the speaker with a new accent aphasia is often sensationalized and many believe that these people have acquired a new accent out of thin air (Stollznow, 2011). This is in line with the belief that the loss of one sense can somehow enhance 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). ....in.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_10/d_10_p/d_10_p_lan/d_10_p_lan.html#3Christopha, DH, de Freitasa, GR, dos Santos, DP, Lima, MS, Arau'jo, AC, & Carota , A. (2004). Different foreign accents perceived in a patient after pre-Rolandic hematoma. 198-201.Hill, A. (April 20, 2010). 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). The woman's migraine gave her a 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.aspxStollznow, K. (2011). The accidental accent. Skeptical , 16 (2), 6-7.
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