Foreign Accent Syndrome: symptoms, causes and treatment

The Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare and little-researched clinical picture, but it poses one of the great enigmas of neuroscience in relation to language. Broadly speaking, it is a condition in which a person suddenly and without apparent explanation acquires an accent other than the native one.

In this article We explain what the Foreign Accent Syndrome is, what are its main characteristics and what science has found so far.

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What is Foreign Accent Syndrome?

Foreign Accent Syndrome is characterized by the sudden presence of an accent different from that of the mother tongue, while speech proceeds normally. It was first described in 1907 by the neurologist Pierre Marie, however few cases have been investigated.

It usually occurs after cerebrovascular accidents and occurs apparently suddenly. The person begins to speak in their native language with full intelligibility, but with an apparently foreign accent that cannot be avoided and that the same person does not recognize as their own.

Symptoms

The accent is recognized by other people as different from that of the mother tongue, although it is not necessarily identified as that of a particular language. In other words, the accent is heard and interpreted by others as foreign, because significant changes are identified in the pronunciation of some syllables, consonants and vowels which are considered cues to the native language, but do not necessarily fully correspond to another accent.

Listeners can recognize that the speaker uses their native language (for example, the Spanish language), but with an accent that can be French, English, German, or any other, which varies according to the opinions of the listeners. In other words, there is generally no agreement on what the perceived accent is, for this reason it is also called Pseudoforeign Accent Syndrome.

This syndrome has been related to a neuromotor alteration, with which It is also defined as an acquired disorder of the bean, in which the central nervous system plays a very important role. It can be accompanied by manifestations related to language and communication disorders such as aphasias and dysarthrias, although not necessarily.

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Representative clinical cases

González-Álvarez, J., Parcet-Ibars, M.A., Ávila, C. et al. (2003) have carried out a review of the scientific literature on the Foreign Accent Syndrome, and they tell us that the first documented case was in the year 1917. It was about a Parisian who developed an “Alsatian” accent her after receiving a war wound that had caused a right hemiparesis.

Thirty years later, another of the best-known cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome was published, where a 30-year-old Norwegian woman suffered an injury frontotemporoparietal after being the victim of a Nazi bombing, and consequently, his accent begins to be recognized by listeners as German.

Due to the highly conflictive context in which she found herself, the German accent caused her various problems in doing everyday things, since she identified herself as German.

Cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome have also been described in the scientific literature without having had previous experience of living with a second language. They are almost always monolingual people.

Associated medical conditions and possible causes

Most of the cases that have been investigated describe the onset of the syndrome after having been diagnosed with Broca's aphasia, transcortical motor aphasia, subcortical white matter lesions in specific gyri.

In addition to the motor language areas, other brain areas that have been related to the Syndrome of Foreign accent have been the precentral gyrus, the inferior central gyrus, the corpus callosum, and the cortex insular. Likewise, the relationship with Rolando's fissure and temporal areas has been investigated.

In more general terms, the medical causes related to Foreign Accent Syndrome are mainly left hemisphere strokes, in relation to the areas that participate in the automation of complex motor behaviors (such as speech, which requires very important neuromuscular coordination).

This syndrome is currently being investigated in relation to the neuronal areas that regulate articulation, the acquisition of native speech and a second language. language, however there is no agreement on the methodological options that would be decisive to find a definitive explanation about this syndrome.

For this same reason there is not enough information about the prognosis and treatments, although they have been tested some auditory and sensory feedback techniques that seek to modify verbal fluency, as well as noise masking techniques that have been found satisfactory in dealing with, for example, the stuttering, since people tend to improve their verbal fluency when they stop listening to their own voice.

Bibliographic references:

• González-Álvarez, J., Parcet-Ibars, M.A., Ávila, C. et al. (2003). A rare speech disorder of neurological origin: the foreign accent syndrome. Neurology Magazine, 36(3): 227-234.
• Shrinivas, H. (2011) Transient foreign accent syndrome. Journal List, doi: 10.1136/bcr.07.2011.4466. Retrieved June 8, 2018. Available in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3214216/.