Sindrome dell'accento straniero. Una prospettiva sociolinguistica

Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) is a rare acquired syndrome caused by a stroke or trauma that specifically affects the speaker’s accent. To date, there is little consensus on the nature of this disorder, although FAS has been primarily viewed as a disorder of linguistic prosody in 93% of cases (Coelho & Robb 2001). The case study presented here explores a shift from a Sicilian to a North-East variety of Italian accent and compared the acousticarticulatory properties of the FAS variety with the major varieties spoken in Veneto. Native listeners’ perception was also analyzed through a perception test on samples of speech from different varieties of Italian. The analysis, conducted with the Praat software, has shown that the FAS speaker uses a variety that has some Sicilian and some North-East traits. In addition to the neurological substrate underlying FAS, psychological and sociolinguistic factors, such as status and prestige, might be also taken into account in this case. Translationally, data collected through an ethnographic approach, such as that presented in this report, may reveal a type of FAS speaker that has not been identified yet. Further reports and integrated multidisciplinary approaches are needed for systematic categorization.