stuttering in signed languages

Fri Nov 30 12:06:55 UTC 2007

Hmmm,

I know a man who stutters a great deal when speaking, but does not stutter when reading out load. In fact he reads very well, well enough to do radio!
This may be fairly common in stutterers and may help explain some of the cases where one stutters in an audio situation and not in a visual.

I might guess that the stutter is still there, and the visual information curbs it. So visualizing signs (or spoken words) masks the stutter and proper movement occurs.

Next time I see this man I think I`ll ask him if he can visualize a few phrases before he says them..

Victor Tilley

> From: mieke.vanherreweghe at ugent.be
> To: slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> Subject: Fw: [SLLING-L] stuttering in signed languages
> Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 10:38:49 +0100
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> For your information, from a colleague of mine.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Mieke Van Herreweghe
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John Van Borsel" <john.vanborsel at UGent.be>
> To: <Mieke.VanHerreweghe at UGent.be>
> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 11:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [SLLING-L] stuttering in signed languages
> 
> 
> > Please find in attachment some information that may help.
> > Best regards,
> > John Van Borsel
> >
> > ----- Doorgestuurd bericht van dcogill at une.edu.au -----
> >     Datum: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 22:34:32 +1000 (EST)
> >       Van: dcogill at une.edu.au
> > Antwoorden aan:A list for linguists interested in signed languages
> > <slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
> >  Onderwerp: [SLLING-L] stuttering in signed languages
> >       Aan: slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> >
> > Hi there,
> >
> > thanks so much to Donald, Debbie, Ingvild, Sarah, Theresa and also Jenny
> > Webster, from whom I've just received permission to add her post to the
> > general pool - as follows -
> >
> >> Hi Dorothea:
> >> In the first BSL course I took several years ago, there was a hearing
> > woman who stuttered in her speech, and was excited to learn BSL because
> > she thought it would give her a way to communicate without stuttering.
> > Unfortunately, she did stutter (or what the British call 'stammer') in
> > BSL
> >> as well.  She dropped out of the course after about a year.  Her hands
> > would shake when she signed, and she would have a lot of false starts -
> > really similar to vocal stuttering.
> >> Best wishes
> >> Jenny Webster
> >> Research associate / PhD student
> >> University of Central Lancashire
> >> Preston, UK
> >
> >  So here are already six examples of stuttering-like patterns in signing,
> > or at the very least accompanying speech+signing. Donald Grushkin and
> > Sarah both describe signers who had blinking and twitching during the
> > stuttering too, so typical of many speech stutterers. Plus there's a
> > thesis that adds more (though unfortunately due to the data-gathering
> > method there were no individual cases that I can add to the pool here,
> > just a conclusion that 'stuttering happens for signers too'). It's
> > certainly enough to make one reluctant to keep happily repeating the
> > statement that "stuttering is a speech problem, not a language problem" -
> > though I don't know what one WOULD positively say instead.
> >
> > Just thinking about possible scenarios, in an effort to figure out what
> > one would expect to see from a given underlying cause, and how different
> > scenarios would fit the posted examples - just having a little speculate,
> > in other words...
> >
> > certainly for most of us on slling-list, the most interesting scenario
> > would be, stuttering is something that affects LANGUAGE, before it gets
> > associated with any particular motor system.  The only case in our
> > mini-pool (wading pool? :-)) of shared potential cases here that wouldn't
> > fit that would be Theresa Smith's possible Californian man; someone
> > doesn't stutter in ASL even though he stutters in English. And we could
> > say, hypothetically, "well, for him, a late learner and hearing person,
> > perhaps his ASL is not full and grammatical and fluent enough to be really
> > mentally coded by him as language - whereas conversely, in Jenny Webster's
> > stuttering English speaker learning BSL, we could hypothesise that she's
> > thinking in English still, and this is jamming her signed production, just
> > as stuttering jams speech-accompanying gesture too, according to David
> > McNeill (the gesture chap at Chicago U)." But Donald Grishkind's Gallaudet
> > student who stuttered while simultaneously signing and speaking would fit
> > OK, and so would Ingvild Roald's chap who even 'stuttered' when typing on
> > the computer.
> >
> > At the other extreme, there's a very boring possible alternative
> > scenario(well, boring for most of us, I would suppose). I'm ashamed to say
> > this only occurred to me after I posted my initial enquiry; what if, yes,
> > people stutter in signed languages, but they actually 'stutter' in all
> > sorts of movement patterns?  Then it's not a language thing, not a speech
> > thing, not a sign thing, but a general 'jamming up' of motor movements
> > that happens to some people - perhaps, just in some class of their rapid,
> > highly -rehearsed, complex motor movements, the class of movement that's
> > affected varying from person to person? Deborah Chen Pilcher, in that
> > thesis you referred me to, Geoff Whitebread mentions in passing a case of
> > someone who had stutter-like symptoms on playing the flute!  Very rapid,
> > highly-complex movement....
> >
> > If this is the case - if one can have a knitting-stutter, or a
> > crochet-stutter, or a piano-stutter (and the only reason we don't usually
> > is because people with the problem don't continue with trying to knit!) -
> > then you'd think that people researching stuttering would know of the
> > phenomenon. I will try to find out, and if I get an intelligible reply
> > from a stutter-researcher, I will report back. Meanwhile, though, fingers
> > crossed it's not true. The first scenario is so much more interesting.
> >
> > Dorothea.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SLLING-L mailing list
> > SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> > http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
> >
> >
> > ----- Einde doorgestuurd bericht -----
> >
> 
> 
> Prof. dr. Mieke Van Herreweghe
> English Department
> Ghent University
> Rozier 44
> 9000 Ghent
> Belgium
> tel. +32 - 9 - 264 37 90
> fax +32 - 9 - 264 41 79
> Have a look at: http://gebaren.ugent.be

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