Differences between Foreign Accent Syndrome and Real Foreign Accents

Foreign accent syndrome FAS) is a motor speech disorder in which patients develop a speech accent which is notably different from their premorbid accent. This paper investigates the perceptual differences between speakers with FAS, speakers with a real foreign accent and a group of control speakers. From the results it appears that speakers with FAS are situated between the other groups at all levels of analysis. This suggests that the foreign accent in FAS does not sound as foreign as in speakers with a real foreign accent, but not as native as the native control group.