Talk:Foreign accent syndrome

Former life
What if this is the proof of that we actually have several lifes, and that you are getting the accent of a former self? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.255.133.48 (talk) 15:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh my, there are nuts where else you go! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.171.36 (talk) 21:21, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Famous Sufferers?
Im not sure but i think Sting suffered from this condition when he was a singer in The Police, he's from Newcastle but often sang with a Jamaican-esque accent like "Roxanne, you don' have to turn on de red light" but other times he would sing with his native accent, like "Message in a Bottle" no


 * Former Spanish primer minister José María Aznar has the syndrome. Humorists had a crack with his sudden outbursts of Mexicanized Spanish when he was visiting Bush in Texas.  In a recent press conference in Italy he spoke Spanish in a strange Italianized form.  --Amador 23:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Foreign Accent Syndrome
Can't find any reference to it, but in a recent TV item an American sufferer spoke with an "English" accent which sounded like Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins", i.e. it was a pretty poor attempt at an English accent. Presumably the quality of the "foreign" accent depends upon the skills of the sufferer. That is not to say it is deliberately faked - but certainly it is not a "genuine" foreign accent. Anjouli 17:36, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Surely it just sounds like one. It's an phonetic impairment (caused by brain damage) which makes the speaker sound foreign. Secretlondon 17:38, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)


 * I beg to differ. The example I heard sounded exactly like an American trying to sound British. And I mean exactly. But perhaps that was an example of somebody doing it on purpose because of some psychological compulsion. There may well be two different illnesses here. One a compulsion to impersonate and the other an organic interference with the speech-process.Anjouli 18:09, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I think the case you mention above is the same one quoted below (on the BBC report). I wouldn't say it was a Dick Van Dyke cockney at all. It has some British pronunciation but it's not pin-downable to a region or class. There is an accompanying video. The video suggests that doctors believe it is psychological in origin but the text of the report suggests that the speech patterns on the speaker become mangled with injury and that this is interpreted as a foreign sounding accent in the hearer. Mintguy


 * It is indeed. The 'accent' as opposed to speech impediment is all in the minds of the hearer.  Some people have supposedly picked up accents they've never heard before.  Morwen 17:40, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A PubMed search for "Foreign accent syndrome" certainly points in the direction of this being physical, rather than psychological, in nature. -- Anon.


 * Presumably, one would think, the foreign accent would have to be one with which the patient already has a certain degree of familiarity. Nowadays, with global communication and media coverage having become everyday phenomena, most people have at least some exposure to a wide variety of accents--at a minimum, British, French, German, Russian, Indian, Mexican/Latin American and Chinese. If the syndrome is psychological, I wonder if knowledge of the language behind the accent plays any role. For example, I speak German almost fluently, and thanks to extensive practice in reducing my American accent (yes, we do have an accent) as well as exposure to German speech, I can imitate the German accent without the common excessive exaggeration. (No German I've ever met utters mangled consonants like "Ve haff Vays uff makink You tak.") It would also be interesting to find out whether the foreign accent syndrome extends to grammar--would I start saying things like "The most of us came" or "Since six years I am living here"? Brain damage can definitely affect linguistic ability in unpredictable ways. A Frenchwoman I know whose grandfather was American and had lived in Cherbourg for fifty years told me that when he suffered a stroke, he lost a lot of his French vocabulary and syntax, but it gradually returned. --Bamjd3d

This is the most recently reported case ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3235934.stm ) I think it was also reported on the front page of The Daily Telegraph. Mintguy 17:49, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't think this is really treated as a syndrome. From what I've learned on the topic, people sometimes develop speech problems as a result of brain injuries. Some of them happen to end up sounding like a foreign accent. That doesn't mean, though, that it is necessarily a syndrome; it's more of a coincidence. WoodenTaco 02:21, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

On the Discovery Channel, on a program called "Medical Incredible", it was said that there had been only 20 reported cases since 1919. --Guthrie
 * And they also said not all experts agree; that it could result from having heard an accent at some time in life and the brain ending up employing it. To me, it seemed like the brain, with trauma is like "Now how do I use speech again? This instance of talking to Lord Byrington Femmingwether *trying to make a stereotypical British name* seems familiar; this must be the correct way to speak!"  Kinda like some horribly crossed wires.

I have foreign accent syndrome. It developed out of my illness. I have a very rare condition called PANDAS SYNDROME IN ADULTS. Basically I got a streptococchal (strep) throat infection which created antibodies to kill off the strep throat but instead of dying they carried on to my brain and damaged the basal ganglia. This is the part of brain that sorts out the movement and speech. I have to disagree with any of the people who say it is made up, mine certainly was not. When I was first in hospital undiagnosed I had three phases. 1st a very slow speech, 2nd normal speech, 3rd very fast repetitive speech e.g I I I dont dont dont know know know. I was given Trihexyphenidyl. Within 4-5 weeks my very slow accent got quicker. It sounded like a South Wales chapel preacher. My fast accent got slower down to 2 repeats. I I dont dont know know. Then it all merged into one. It was English with "a" at the end of every word. e.g. Ia donta knowa. I went to a speech therapist and she said i had a half french and half italian accent. She helped me by removing the "a" from the end of every word, I could not say lettuce or surface I spoke them how they sounded.

For those unbelievers out there; FAS is actually a syndrome, not a fad designed to look cool. It just happens that in the case of Cindy Lou Romberg, her new accent sounds unusual, funny, and quirky. The former is a case of a physical and chemical change in the body; the latter is a case of sociology and social constructs. rock8591 08:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rock8591 (talk • contribs)

Newspaper plagiarises Wikipedia?
This July 3 "Evening Chronicle" article includes the paragraph about the Norwegian woman, word for word. And the article was last edited in April. Hmm. Sandstein 17:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Norwegian? Have borrowed some back! Martinevans123 (talk) 14:54, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Plagiarism?
Here is an artcile from the BBC's website from 2002 that would seem to have been at least partially plagiarised for the Wikipedia entry.

From the BBC page: 'To add insult to injury, some doctors dismissed the problem as more likely to be psychiatric in origin than physical.

Dr Jennfier Gurd, who led the research with phonetician Dr John Coleman, said: "The way we speak is an important part of our personality and influences the way people interact with us.

"It is understandably quite traumatic for patients to find that their accent has changed."

Dr Coleman told BBC News Online: "There is a good likelihood in time you are going to improve and become more like you used to be."'

Compared to the (later) Wikipedia entry: 'Usually, it is very traumatic for stroke patients to find that their accent has unexpectedly changed, usually adding insult to the previous, severe brain injury. Furthermore, many physicians have dismissed foreign accent syndrome, calling it psychological.'

'Dr. Jennifer Gurd and Dr. John Coleman, the latter a phonetician, have studied patients of this condition, and have found that the great majority are severely traumatized. However, Coleman believes that in time, patients may improve, regaining their former speaking abilities.'


 * That's not plagiarism, at least from a legal standpoint. The fact that it has been removed from the article saddens me, as it is hypercorrection. Paraphrasing another work is perfectly legal, as long as the work is not fictional (and thus the actual fictional situation and characters are under copyright). Anyways, since we Wikipedians cannot do original research, our only hope is to paraphrase other works. As long as a reference is given, there is nothing academically wrong with it, either. It might be discouraged in school, where the focus is getting the students to learn to write for themselves (and allows original research), but that doesn't make it dishonest in an encyclopedic setting. I'll leave it to another editor to decide whether or not to re-add the information.
 * -- trlkly 20:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * No, it's not plagiarism, it's using a WP:RS. Most of this material could go back in, with suitable reference to the source and/or quotes. There is currently still too little in the article in terms of research, explanation, analysis and possible treatments. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:07, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Another aspect of the disorder
I believe Cindy Lou Romberg was featured in a brief story on CNN recently. Another problem she had was what she called something like "speaking in a language no one can identify". She basically was attempting to speak English and believed the sounds she was making were separate words, but it was coming out as strings of nonsense syllables. I think she said this was involuntary, but I'm not sure. I don't know what this would be called medically or how to describe it in the article itself. Atherva (talk) 07:08, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It is likely that she suffered Aphasia-like symptoms along with her FAS, possibly a production Aphasia like Broca's Aphasia.24.20.119.111 (talk) 21:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A logical but controversial explanation
Since the condition shows up after a physical trauma, often a head injury, probably with a period of unconsciousness, an explanation would - if you can fit it in your belief system ... - be that such a person is a "walk in". What is that? See http://www.christian-reincarnation.com/WalkInE.htm for an explanation. Or how else would you explain that the person can in certain cases even speak words or sentences in a language he or she hasn’t learned (xenoglossy)? Any other "natural" explanation will be a lot more far fetched than this one! But you would have to admit that the human being has a soul that survives the death of the body. Signed: Jan Erik Sigdell (see the stated website) Nov. 19, 2008, UTC 13:55


 * There are two big problems as I see it here. One, the accent is not another accent, but to a listener resembles a foreign accent. For example, someone with FAS may sound British or Bostonian if there is no final r, and the listener assumes such. If you know or have a British/Boston accent, then you hear something else, such as a French accent.


 * Second is that anybody can speak words from another language. Xenoglossy can be attributed to speech perception as well. If I were to blurt out a string of syllables and sounds, invariably someone will hear words from some language. Sim-speak exemplifies this. It's all nonsense, but if you listen, you can hear words that aren't English. I am always hearing "Ohana" which is Hawaiian for family or Japanese for Flower because I know the word. Likewise, I also always hear "Tularu" which sounds vaguely Hawaiian as well. If I didn't know any Hawaiian, I wouldn't hear these as words. 24.20.119.111 (talk) 21:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

There was an incident involving an American television news reporter called Serene Branson - she was providing an on-the-spot report on the Grammys for her TV station - the moment she started to speak, she suddenly spouted a lot of incomprehensible gibberish.

Here is the video:

News Reporter Has A Stroke On Air

It's actually called an "Aura Migraine", what she suffered - apparently, it only affects women!

Arthurvasey (talk) 22:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Haha very funny
 After a stroke, her normal Geordie accent was transformed and has been variously described as resembling a Jamaican, as well as a French Canadian, Italian and a Slovak accent.

When you click on French Canadian, it brings you to Canada instead of where it properly belongs, Quebec. Good one fellas. (Vive le Quebec Libre!) KiNgFrOmHeLl (talk) 23:06, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey guys, I am surprised no one has mentioned the possibility of people faking it for publicity... I mean, the article is talking about these people becoming famous and skipping from talk show to talk show...

I mean, sure, it seems plausible that brain damage can alter how you speak, given that all we are is a complex set of connections in our brains, but some of this is ridiculous. I mean, seriously, I can't count the times the news has interviewed "psychics" "people who say the got a message from god" "people who claim to cure disease" I mean, there are tons of articles all over where people get exposed for faking that kind of stuff, and this has got to be even easier to fake... Done rambling now, but to put it succinctly, 1. This seems an easy disorder to fake/exaggerate 2. It seems some of these people are going out of their way to get as much publicity as possible from this... Connect the dots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.132.147 (talk) 21:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It's possible, but unlikely. It's relatively easy to figure out people who are faking sometimes, just by the way they act. People who actually have speech disorders are consistent in their problems, and are usually frustrated by their inability to speak normally. Besides, you are comparing metaphysical with the physical. It's like comparing an Orange to an Elephant. The two are in no way equal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.119.111 (talk) 21:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

people encountered.
I met the nicest lady in her late 50s to mid 60s who has this condition. She was bit by a spider. The venom reached her brain and the only side effect is her distorted accent. Sounds German or Slovikian. I would have not believed it accept she had to get her husband to explain what happened and the condition she has. She's not been on any talk shows she just does organic gardening at home. If there's money to be made she's missing out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.46.196.38 (talk) 19:35, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Treatment
No mention of treatment in the article. www.ehow.com * states: "Individuals with Foreign Accent Syndrome usually respond well to treatment." —DIV (138.194.12.32 (talk) 03:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)) * Note: website blocked on Wikipedia, please correct URL manually.

Patient with Foreign Accent Syndrome
I am a sufferer of FAS and would like to clarify a few points that people generally misinterpret when discussing or talking about this condition. FAS is a speech disorder in which others interpret the speech as a foreign accent when actually it is a dysfunction with the prosody, the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. The name of the condition is really a misnomer because people who suffer from this do not actually acquire a foreign accent. People with FAS do not wake up one day with the lingo and other generalized phrases of another region nor do they suddenly start writing in the variation of a particular language (i.e. American English vs. British English spellings). We may however miss words/letters, repeat words, add letters to words (such as ending words in a 's' sound when there isn't normally one there), have trouble finding the appropriate word that we are trying to use and the like. There are also many causes including differing forms of brain trauma. A few people, like me, have developed the 'accent' after severe, prolonged bouts of Sporadic Hemiplegic Migraines (see:Familial hemiplegic migraine).

The most important thing for people to remember is that this is not a true accent but a disorder in the way the words are formed, syllables are pronounced etc. so that the speech itself really cannot necessary be identified as an actual known accent. By this I mean that there may be times that a person with FAS 'sounds' British to the untrained ear but may actually pronounce various syllables in a manner that may match a combination of sounds associated with British, Australian and Irish accents. The quality of the speech may also change for many of us dependent on our fatigue levels, how we are trying to stress words, volume and other factors. It is a complicated and very frustrating condition to have not only because so few people are aware that it exists but also because of the loss of a very real part of our personalty.

Many people have implied that people with this condition are 'faking it' for the publicity or some other crazy reason. Please understand that this is not a condition you would want to have. The first year after my speech 'changed' I spent my time going to speech therapy and trying to get my own family to understand what I was saying. Many times during that period I would have to actually write out what I wanted to say or send emails across the room because my speech was so slurred and difficult to understand. Even two and a half years later I still have to repeat myself frequently, even with close friends and family, and have even had occasions where I have had to have a family member that is around me often explain to others what I am saying. Due to fears of foreigners that some Americans have, I have even been verbally accosted in public because people automatically think that I am foreign. I did not ask for this to happen and have enough struggles in my life without being further abused by people who choose to side on ignorance rather than education. But because of the trials I have had I am currently working on efforts to inform both the general public and medical community that this and other rare disorders do exist in the hope that others may receive better diagnosis and treatment for their conditions and not have to suffer the challenges that I have had to face. Juliekfrazier (talk) 06:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for sharing your information and your experiences. I found it both helpful and informative.  Hope things are going well for you.  Thanks again!   (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC))


 * Thanks for telling your story. I'm just a person who is curious about this extremely rare disorder. I notice that it has been almost 5 years since your posted this. Hope things have been getting better for you. Take care. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benjasmine (talk • contribs) 07:15, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Misleading article - suggested changes
I think that this article so far seems very misleading. I particularly dislike that specific accents are assigned to the sufferers of the syndrome in the list format at the end. Given that no one is really picking up another foreign accent (just having some changes in their accessible phonemes, prosody, etc, as Juliekfrazier mentioned above), it seems non-encyclopedic to give a list of what accent it "sounds like" they have, which is hugely subjective. I imagine people will be curious, but it might be worth while to either try to re-emphasize that these are not real accents or at least reword the sentences that make it seem like they are accents. Example:


 * Another incident involving migraine was recorded in September 2010, again with a British woman. After lying down for a while because of her migraine, 49-year-old Kay Russell, from Gloucestershire UK, woke up with a French accent.[22][23][24]

Could be re-worded as:


 * In September 2010, Kay Russell, a 49-year-old woman from Gloucestershire UK, lay down due to a migraine and woke up with/suffering from FAS. Her accent is generally described as sounding French, though it has also been categorized it as sounding Eastern European or Russian.[22][23][24]

(New details taken from the sources). Doing so may be a bit wordier, but it is certainly more accurate, and less likely to give a faulty impression to the reader of what FAS is actually like. 0x0077BE (talk) 00:28, 3 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I quite agree. Re-reporting the cases in this way is indeed self-contradictory for this article. But, in some cases we will be stuck with the way it was originally reported. The example you give would be ideal. Unfortunately, however, these stories are a great topic for tabloids, where such niceties are not needed. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:48, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

This article is becoming a list
This article is increasingly just becoming a list of people who have claimed in the popular media to have foreign accent syndrome. Most of the synopses are decidedly misleading or parroted from popular articles in direct contradiction to the more scientific parts of the article. I recommend that the list part of this article be purged. If someone wants to turn it into a little paragraph about how FAS is often reported in the media that seems like it could be done OK.0x0077BE (talk) 18:46, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I know what you mean, but notability of cases is largely based on press reports and many of such reports are to be found in the popular press. I think the relevance of the list may be in its brevity, illustrating the rarity of this alleged condition. I have no problem with replacing tabloid sources with broadsheet ones, or with scientific journal material, if it exists. But, equally, I see no need for any "purge" until more scientifically-based material has been be added to the article. What do other editors think? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:18, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the list of incidents should be culled. An encyclopedic article should describe the disease, and perhaps a couple of notable cases. The fact that this is periodically covered in the news does not mean we should list every occasion CNN decides to air a story about this unusual condition.    Joel Why? (talk) 13:05, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I would have thought that CNN was a perfectly reliable source, especially compared to some of those which currently appear. I'd prefer to find better sources, if possible, before any "cull" is made. But how do we decide what is an "optimum" list size? If this condition is as rare as has been claimed, surely each reported case deserves to be noted, if not examined in some detail? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:47, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * CNN is a reliable source. I only meant that this condition is unusual and not particularly life threatening, so it makes a good human-interest story. Therefore, you'll see a good number of these cases covered by CNN, MSNBC, etc, but that doesn't mean they're particularly important. There appears to be about 1 case reported per year (i.e. 62 reported cases over the past 60 years), meaning it's rare, but there's absolutely no need to have 61 separate accounts for each individual. Drawing the line is always going to be an arbitrary matter, but I think narrowing this down to 2 or 3 examples in a single section makes sense.    Joel Why? (talk) 20:17, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh well, fair enough. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:25, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with @JoelWhy, though I'd probably prefer that the list be removed entirely and replaced with a paragraph, like, "Foreign accent syndrome has about x cases per year and often garners press attention. Many cases, such as those of John Doe[cite1], Jane Doe[cite2] and John Q Public[cite3] have been the result of strokes, while others[cite4][cite5][cite6] have been the result of a physical trauma." People can read the individual stories at the sources. If people think that the whole list is justifiably encyclopedic, I think it would be preferable to split the list into a second article, List of people reported to have Foreign Accent Syndrome or something of that nature. 0x0077BE (talk) 18:13, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * We'd need WP:RS even for such descriptive statements as ".. about x cases per year and often garners press attention." A list of reported cases has the benefit of being simply that (although ideally it should be based on a list published itself in a peer-reviewed journal paper, etc.) I'm not sure there are enough cases here to justify a whole new article. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:28, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see how it's better to imply a number of cases if we can't state it - that just seems like it's skirting the rules about sourcing statements. In any case, I think the wikipedia's editorial preference is, in general, to opt for prose over lists, and this article is wholly redundant. This article is mostly about FAS, not about the people who have it. Honestly, I think that if anything the limited nature of the list weighs in favor of a separate article, as it can be extensive. 0x0077BE (talk) 18:39, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry to see that you think "this article is wholly redundant." Martinevans123 (talk) 18:56, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I actually don't know what I meant by that and I don't remember writing it. Must have been distracted for a second and let my hands wander on the keyboard. I think what I might have meant is that most of the items in the list are wholly redundant as they are all variations on a theme. Person A has a stroke, wakes up sounding weird, people say that instead of their  accent, they now have a  accent. Person B fell down and messed up their jaw, now they speak like they are . I've been critical in general of the somewhat loose terms in which these events are described in general and I think that the fact that these case studies are now taking up a significant fraction of the article means that we need to either decide that such a list is worth including in Wikipedia - in which case it should have a separate list article - or such a list is NOT worth including, in which case it should be removed and replaced with a summary of its contents. This is the natural evolution of articles as they improve.0x0077BE (talk) 19:36, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, those are your own two preferred alternatives. Thanks for clarifying your position. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:43, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think it should be included here, and I don't think it should be turned into its own article. If there were 5 people in the history of modern medicine, maybe the list (even as its own article) makes sense. But, we've got dozens of cases. Again, extremely rare, but I just don't see how that warrants an encyclopedia article. I know there are tons of articles on Wikipedia that are equally undeserving (e.g. Pen Clicking) but no need to further clutter up the internet with trivia, IMHO. Joel Why? (talk) 19:48, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Strange, my Pen Clicking link isn't working, but there's an article (unfortunately) on this topic. What'd I do wrong?    Joel Why? (talk) 19:49, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia articles are case sensitive by default. I added a redirect from Pen Clicking to Pen clicking so now your original link works. 0x0077BE (talk) 19:57, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * How many dozens is that, exactly? And why do you consider this article to be "trivia"? Did someone mention a vote? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:52, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with a vote. Presumably the RfC should go out to WikiProject:Medicine and WikiProject_Neuroscience. 0x0077BE (talk) 19:57, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * A very good idea. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If this is an RfC we may want to narrow it to the minimum number of agreeable options. I think that overall the options we're considering are: leave it alone, prune it down, remove it entirely, summarize it or move it to its own article. Should we ask a more general "What should happen to it"? or should we just decide on 2-3 options and try and achieve consensus on those? I think "summarize" and "remove entirely" can be merged into one option. Do we have an existing consensus that something must be done, leaving us with the options of, "Prune down, restate in paragraph form or split to new article"? 0x0077BE (talk) 20:12, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not saying this article is trivia. I'm saying an article listing everyone who has experienced this disease would be trivial. Joel Why? (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * (And I'm saying it depends on how many there are.) And my preferred option - "improve sources of existing list and/or replace with a list from an academic paper". Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:07, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * We know how many there are. 62 since 1941.    Joel Why? (talk) 20:39, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, Mariën et al told us in 2009, apparently. But we don't know who they all were? Nor that the 14 included here are in any way considered (medically) to be the most notable (and at least 5 of these 14 seem to have occurred after that paper was written). Do you think 62 is too many for a list in a separate article (even if all their names were known)? Looks like a subscription to Cortex might come in useful... Martinevans123 (talk) 20:49, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not that I necessarily think 62 is too many for a list, it's that I think the individual names of each person is a trivial matter in the context of an encyclopedia. The disease is notable. Each individual who has contracted from the disease is not.    Joel Why? (talk) 13:02, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

RfC: What should be done with the list of Foreign Accent Syndrome cases?
The list of foreign accent syndrome cases in this article has grown over time - what should be done with it going forward? Options currently under consideration are listed below:
 * Keep as a list but improve (by pruning down and/or improving sources)
 * Remove the list and incorporate relevant content into the article in paragraph form.
 * Move the list into its own article. 0x0077BE (talk) 20:22, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Survey

 * Remove list and summarize. As per my arguments in the previous section, I am in favor of removing the list entirely and incorporating any relevant material from the lists in the main body of the article in paragraph form. 0x0077BE (talk) 20:28, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Remove list and summarize. The different list items all seem filled with trivia. I would take the few points that are of interest and incorporate them in the rest of the article. I would certainly leave out the names of the people involved. Most of them are not notable and if they are notable, it is because of other things. --Randykitty (talk) 20:52, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Remove list and summarise. If necessary, move list to: List of notable cases of foreign accent syndrome. However, if this is an established disease state then only particularly notable sufferers (including the first) should be noted in a society and culture / history section. There is certainly no need for a running tally. LT910001 (talk) 12:57, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Remove list and summarize A couple of notable examples may be included, but no call for a list here, and I contend there's no need for a separate page with said list, either.    Joel Why? (talk) 13:03, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Improve sourcing of existing list - ensure all sources are WP:RS and exclude items if not; attempt to agree more rigorous criteria for inclusion (cf List of unusual deaths); in the longer term - replace with a list pre-compiled by an academic journal paper, if such exists. (If a separate list article is deemed necessary, see such as List of people with synesthesia, etc., but note these are all also deemed to be notable persons in their own right). Martinevans123 (talk) 14:07, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep list but make sure sourcing is adequate Given the limited number of cases, a list is reasonable here, but every entry in it should be well documented. Looie496 (talk) 16:51, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Remove list and summarise. The list does seem rather filled with trivia, much of it poorly sourced. Once you cut out the trivia, it doesn't look to me that there'd be enough left for a list, even if such a thing were worthwhile. Better to take the salient information and incorporate it in the article. Anaxial (talk) 08:00, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Threaded Discussion
I think that seeing some of the responses to the survey, I'd like to make a comment about the list sourcing. For those in favor of keeping the list but "improving the sources", what exactly does that mean? From what I can see every item in the list has several sources. Does improving the sources mean keeping it to case studies mentioned in academic literature? Does a CNN fluff piece about someone who talks with a different accent now count but a similar article in the Daily Mail or New York Post not count? It seems to me that the fact that these are real cases is not at issue, and the sourcing is adequate. My two biggest concerns is that the sources almost uniformly will try to identify what kind of accent the person is talking with, which is an exercise in pareidolia and does not belong in this article. I'm not even comfortable with including, "People say that it sounded like a accent", as this gives the false impression that foreign accent syndrome results in someone going from talking like Kevin Bacon to talking like Pierce Brosnan overnight (which is not how it works).

Given the emphasis on sources, it seems to me like those in favor of removal and those opposed are not quite on the same page about what the problem is. In my opinion, the problem has nothing to do with sourcing, but the fact that this article should not be used as a repository for all news articles about foreign accent syndrome. I am of the opinion that it is not that these cases have not been adequately documented, but that they are simply not notable, nor is it relevant to the subject of the article, which is about the syndrome itself, not about the people who have it. Even if we had medical case studies listing every one of these patients in detail (the best source I can imagine for something like this), I still don't think it would be relevant for this article. My question to the "keep" supporters is: why do you think the sourcing is the problem, and under what theory do you propose that this list is notable? 0x0077BE (talk) 17:14, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Sourcing appears a bigger problem to me than whether a list is here at all. And I think accuracy of "accent likeness" is one main part of that sourcing problem. Ideally I'd like to see sources only from experts in the field, who had assessed the person in question at first hand - not second-hand tabloid appraisals of how a friend or neighbour may have described the circumstances and the accent. I don't have worries about "realness" only about accuracy. (btw, I don't think what the popular press try to do is "an exercise in pareidolia". I'm not sure what the name is for trying to describing mutated speech in terms of a foreign accent, but I don't think it's pareidolia. Or if it is, then we ought to add a link to FAS over there! Martinevans123 (talk) 17:37, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Pareidolia is seeing familiar patterns that do not exist in the data. As FAS as described does not result in a specific regional accent, hearing someone speak with slurred speech and your brain automatically fitting that to an "Irish accent" would be an example of pareidolia. It's a wide net. Given that. I think that the sourcing question is irrelevant to the question of what to do with the list. Clearly if you choose to keep the list it should be maintained. I don't think anyone's going to disagree with that. 0x0077BE (talk) 18:20, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If you have an WP:RS that supports your assertion that distinguishing other-national accents (even false ones) is pareidolia, I think you should add it to that article. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:48, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's worth finding a WP:RS on the idea that this always is the result of a speech pathology (and thus any similarity to a real accent being entirely coincidental) and never as any kind of psychological/neurological effect where someone is mimicking a specific accent. If that's the case, I don't think it matters if we can find a WP:RS saying that when interpreted as a specific regional accent it's pareidolia, as that's necessarily true from the premises. That said, it's likely that if we find a source for the one they'll mention the pareidolia. 0x0077BE (talk) 19:11, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * good luck! Martinevans123 (talk) 19:36, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

On another note, I created a preliminary version of this article without the list in my namespace, retaining most of the sources and grouping the list into a paragraph on "Media coverage", as that seems to be the primary notable attribute of the list items: User:0x0077BE/Foreign_accent_syndrome 0x0077BE (talk) 18:20, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * That's very good of you. Are you adding in intermediate edits? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:48, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I figured I'd wait until we got consensus and then try and merge them. The bulk of it was removing the list and adding a new section, so that doesn't need intermediate editing. I've noticed that you've done some significant cleaning up, so I figure if we go ahead I'll merge them manually and copy-edit as I go rather than cut+paste wholesale. 0x0077BE (talk) 19:11, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * (= some minor tweaks and copy edits). Martinevans123 (talk) 19:36, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, it's been about a week, I'm thinking that the consensus is going towards removal of the list. I'll touch up the version in my userspace and unless there's a big swell against merge it into the article in the next few days. 0x0077BE (talk) 19:41, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Nobody selected "Move the list into its own article." But I don't see any consensus against doing that. Does this warrant a second round of the survey? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:08, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I imagine that at this point it's a separate issue whether the list on its own is notable. I would guess based on the fact that no one is really in support of moving it to its own article that the survey would come out against, but you're welcome to do the survey. Personally I don't think there's enough encyclopedic content here that it deserves its own article. 0x0077BE (talk) 20:11, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The survey has 3 options: (1) keep the list, (2) remove the list and summarize, or (3) move list to its own article. Given that the majority of people just suggested removal, it certainly does not appear to indicate support for creating a new article.
 * "Keep" and "remove" are mutually exclusive. "Move to own article" and "remove" are not. "Options currently under consideration" is not the same instruction as "choose only one option." (...just sayin'). And what's the argument about "not enough encyclopedic content" exactly? - we have a list of 14 factual reports. We don't know how relatively reliable they are - although we might guess from their sources. We don't know if some are mis-diagnoses, as we have no expert commentary. We don't know how they compare with the "62 since 1941" reported by Mariën et al in 2009. But even though we don't yet know these things, we still have a collection of seemingly relevant factual cases. To just throw it away, before it can be evaluated in some way, or put into a proper diagnostic context, seems to me a little rash. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:09, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure, but the fact that "remove from this article" was broken into two possibilities and no one chose the latter position is telling of how a second RfC will come out. The fact of the matter is that a list of cases with their case histories is not particularly notable. Say there are 62 cases since 1941, and let's assume for now that all the ones that were interesting enough to warrant press coverage have been covered in this article. If you look at the list, I'd say about half of them we won't be finding any reliable sources that these people actually had FAS, and the other half are not notable. The only remotely notable cases I see in the article are the early cases (which are in the article anyway) and George Michael (and his claim to FAS is, to say the least, dubious, and can be covered in the article about him anyway).
 * To address your last point, I'd say that just because it's factual content doesn't mean it belongs in Wikipedia. An unembellished account of everything I've done for the past month is factual content, but it does not belong on Wikipedia. Even if it turns out that the things I've done in the past month somehow lead to some major revolution in industry or something, that content shouldn't have been put on Wikipedia pre-emptively. And, of course, we're not throwing it away. It's in the revision history, and this discussion will either be on the talk page or the talk page archive, and anyone can mirror it in their userspace whenver they want. Future editors are free to comb through it for redeeming or notable qualities and attempt to create a cogent article out of it, but my guess is that it would be deleted for lack of notability. 0x0077BE (talk) 00:01, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ... straw man, assumption, prediction and mis-attribution. (Just because it's George Michael doesn't mean it's any more notable). Martinevans123 (talk) 08:01, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * How about being more clear instead of just spouting out the names of fallacies? George Michael is notable on his own accord, which is the reason why he has his own article. As a result, him having a rare disease is also notable. Think about this, if I break my leg on the job, is it notable? How about if Barack Obama breaks his leg on the job? Things are more notable when they happen to notable people. 0x0077BE (talk) 14:18, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Apologies if my quick summarising is seen as just "spouting out". But a broken leg is a broken leg, as far as I'm concerned (unless it's on a horse, of course), regardless of what you may have done for the past month. I'd agree that notability, in the popular sense, does indeed rest to a large part on celebrity. But I was thinking more about notabiity from a diagnostic/ medical perspective. Medical journals don't generally take acoount of blue internal wiki links. (.. and if you think that a death is more or less unusual simply because it has happened to a famous person, you might like to debate that issue at Talk:List of unusual deaths. Excluding the possibility of putting the list of cases here into its own article, on the basis of this RfC, prevents what some might see as a reasonable compromise, simply because the options have been framed in a certain way, i.e. "because A beats B, just forget about C". Martinevans123 (talk) 14:53, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

One of the references is possibly a phishing site
One if the references: http://www.healthmango.com/healthgeneral/foreign-accent-syndrome-what-is-it-and-most-notable-cases/ is reported to be a dangerous site by Mozilla Firefox. 89.138.15.255 (talk) 13:47, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Have removed it, thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:05, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

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60 Minutes Australia
'60 Minutes Australia' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLxhSu3UuU4) features the topic. Kdammers (talk) 03:27, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I have the disease
If anyone ever needs information from an actual sufferer of the disorder or how it effects general life and well being, or the social ramifications of having a non-standard dialect, feel free to ask me. Lifelong sufferer. Live in TN but instead of a Mid-Land Southern(Country) accent. I have a non-rhotic variety of a Southern accent with a few minor AAVE features, such as th-stopping. Strangest feature is I have the extinct coil-curl merger. This collides with how my realization of /aɪəɹ/ as [äːɻ], so that 'fire' has merged with the sound of 'far', as well as 'tire' with 'tar'; I cannot pronouce "first" or "nurse" it morphs to "farrst" and "narse" SouthernGentleman00 (talk) 05:44, 25 June 2021 (UTC)