Foreign accent: An aphasic epiphenomenon?

Abstract

A case of a 26-year-old right-handed, monolingual patient is described. As a result of a vascular accident limited to Broca's area, this patient exhibited an extremely obvious foreign accent and a slight agrammatism with no associated neurological deficits. It is proposed that foreign accent is the result of: (1) slight decrease in articulatory agility, (2) some phonological/phonetic changes, (3) loss of suprasegmental features of language, and (4) slight agrammatism. Foreign accent in aphasia is discussed and compared with real foreign accent.