Background Information
The 1992 comedy crime film, My Cousin Vinny, written by Dale Launer and directed by Jonathon Lynn portrays the communication disorder known as stuttering. Stuttering is a fluency disorder in which the rhythm and flow of speech is disrupted and differs significantly from what is socially accepted as ‘normal’. Stuttering has proven to be one of the most common communication disorders portrayed in media and literature; however, the reason behind including a stutter (ranging from barely there to extremely excessive) in a character’s script tends to vary.
Why the Stutter Matters
The screenwriter for My Cousin Vinny seems to have included the reference to this communication disorder to provide a comedic, shocking, and unusual
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Movies have a habit of showing individuals with communication disorders, such as stuttering, working in low-end, minimum-wage jobs. This jobs frequently have little to no social interaction and very few opportunities of interacting with customers. Another common stereotype is that individuals who stutter have a below average intelligence. My Cousin Vinny shows the exact opposite through the defense lawyer. It would be unusual and/or unexpected to see stutterers in the courtroom. These individuals would select to have jobs with less public speaking and less opportunity to be ‘judged’. This detail in the movie may be to some extent inaccurate. Yet, there is no law preventing stutterers from becoming lawyers. So who is to say that individuals with communication disorders would not or could not choose a career in this …show more content…
Stress can cause anyone to feel anxiety. Whether the anxiety is minimal or severe depends on each individual person. Under stress, it is common and acceptable for people’s voice to falter. Speakers under stress might tense the muscles used to produce speech, increasing their vocal pitch. That generally wouldn’t happen in a stress-less situation. Typically when under stress people talk more rapid. This occasionally causes them to stumble over words or get stuck on a syllable. More often than not, they tend to repeat words or phrases as they struggle to talk, present, etc. under the stress. Another common ‘symptom’ under stress is adding interjections, such as “like”, “uhm” and “uh” during speech. These are considered normal and acceptable dysfluencies. The simple task of saying colors in front of an audience was used as a study. They found that under stress, pressure, anxiety and whatever else is felt during public speaking, non-stutterers went from zero percent dysfluencies to four percent. On the other hand, those who normally stuttered went from one percent to nine percent dysfluencies. (Perkins) One interesting fact, is that stutterers are able to talk normally to babies, children, and animals. These audiences are nonthreatening and the speaker is at ease. It is also common for stutterers to talk aloud to themselves without or with very little
This silent fear reflects that I grew up with a history of speech impediments. Spending countless hours as a child driving from one speech therapist to another, repeating a range of exercise from “fee-fi-fo-fum” to watching my tongue placement in a mirror, I was your
Jordan Baker: “Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance…I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said ‘Sh!’ in a warning voice…Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear” (12).
The problem faced by the deaf community is the injustice they encounter when in the criminal justice system. Someone who is deaf or hard of hearing has at least a 50 percent loss of hearing in one ear (Ridgeway 2009), and some may be able to read lips. However, only ½ of all spoken sounds can be translated into American Sign Language (Ridgeway 2009), which makes it difficult for the deaf to communicate without using sign language. Because English and sign language are not the same language, many deaf people are illiterate because of a lack of schooling past a certain age. Even those with schooling up to the age of 18 or older are often functionally illiterate, read at a grade level of second grade or below, and have unintelligible speech (Vernon 2010). Furthermore, there is a segment of the deaf population that is incompetent or minimally competent in terms of understanding the legal process; those people are defined as having Primitive Personality Disorder (PPD). Due to all of this, there are those in the deaf community who are deemed as having Linguistic Incompetence, which means a defendant is declared incompetent to stand trial because he/she does not understand the charges made against them (Vernon 2005).
Davis, S., Shisca, D., & Howell, P. (2007). Anxiety in speakers who persist and recover from stuttering. Journal of Communication Disorders, 40, 398-417.
...xposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential to cause psychological harm. Many of the participants were visibly distressed” (McLeod 7). These stressful situations produced many signs of tension such as stuttering, sweating, trembling and biting lips. Three of the participants had severe seizures that forced the experiment to stop.
In our society communication is a key component and vital to existence in success in this day in age. Not only communication but social skills, motor skills, and our basic senses are the platforms on which we build off of, well, in the world of autism communication is impacted and for that reason an audible disturbance can come off as a heavy impairment…..to the naked eye. In my experience working with autistic boys & girls has showed me the sheer beauty and honesty of how they communicate and relay their feelings and emotions. The autism spectrum disorder is commonly known. Autism has wide spectrum of severity ranging from low to high and in between. This literature review dissects the value of full functioning beings and autistic beings, and explains my interpretation of autism and their ability to find new components to life.
Stuttering is a neurological disorder of communication, from which the normal flow of speech is disrupted by repetitions (neu-neu-neuro), prolongations (biiiii-ol-ooogy), or abnormal stoppages (no sound) of sounds and syllables. Rapid eye blinking, tremors of the lips and/or jaw, or other struggle behaviors of the face or upper body may accompany speech disruptions ((3)). Why does stuttering worsen in situations that involve speaking before a group of people or talking on the phone, whereas fluency of speech improves in situations such as whispering, acting, talking to pets, speaking alone, or singing ((1))? In ancient times, physicians believed that the stutterer's tongue was either too long or too short, too wet or too dry. Therefore, practitioners from the mid-1800s tried surgical remedies such as drilling holes into the skull or cutting pieces of the tongue out to eliminate stuttering ((1) ).
In “Why I Keep Speaking Up, Even When People Mock My Accent,” Safwat Saleem(2016), in an inspiring Ted Talk, emphasizes that maybe normal isn't really normal, Saleem talks about his life and growing up with a stutter and learning confidence. Although as a kid Saleem was bullied such as this example; “After some awkward silence, he goes, "Have you forgotten your name?" (Saleem 2016)And I'm still quiet. And then, slowly, all the other people in the room begin to turn toward me and ask, almost in unison,”(Saleem 2016) with this experience, he, later on, he found comfort in doing voice overs in his videos and disguising his voice to help him except his voice. As to find a norm in his voice
During my demonstration speech, I was affected by my speech anxiety. Some of the viewable symptoms were the shaking of my hands and also the stuttering of speech. I was able to control myself and relax after I started getting into my information. I did use some of the suggested relaxation techniques to relieve my anxiety. Before I got up to speak I thought confident of myself to help give me courage and confidence.
Cognitive Communication Disorder (CCD) is a common disorder after traumatic brain injury (TBI) which results in deficits of cognitive functions and psychosocial behavior and thus communication abilities (Larkins, 2007). Under consideration is a case study involving a 34-year-old male, A. B., with a history of CCD following severe TBI (i.e., coma for 16 days post-incident, hemiplegia on his left side, significant memory deficits) due to a motor vehicle accident (MVA) two years ago. His wife reports improvements in speech intelligibility and activities of daily living (ADLs), but persistent and significant deficits in attention, concentration, memory, awareness, behavioral and emotional control (e.g., disinhibition and impulsive behaviors), and social interactions. She also reports that he gives too little or too much information, does not organize information to make sense, often repeats himself, has trouble maintaining topics in conversation, talks and processes information slowly, and does not use social cues from others such as gestures, eye contact, and emotions. He has not been able to return to his career as a car salesperson which requires communication, memory, and concentration. Thus, CCD impacts his social interactions as well as participation in activities
Anderson tells the story, “I’m a Fool”, through the voice of its main character – the swipe. The narrator’s voice enhances the story because his language reinforces his character. The swipe says that he “got [his] education”, not at college, but though working in the stables, traveling with Burt, and going to horse races. When he refers to people as “dudes” (83) and uses phrases such as “most bitterest” (81), he confirms that fact. He uses improper grammar and many slang expressions; his language shows that he is uneducated and disadvantaged.
Autism is a problem that people have with communicating. It can affect many contrasting types of people in divergent ways and there is not yet a complete cure for it. People need to know about this disability and what people can do with people who have it.
To function effectively in today’s society people must communicate with one another. Yet for some individuals communication experiences are so unrewarding that they either consciously or unconsciously avoid situations where communication is required. (McCroskey & Richmond, 1979) The term ‘communication apprehension’ was coined by James McCroskey (1976a) and is defined as “an individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (McCroskey, 1984). In the last two decades communication apprehension and related constructs, such as reticence and unwillingness to communicate, have received extensive research and theoretical attention by scholars in communication and psychology. In 1984, Payne and Richmond listed over 1000 entries in a bibliography of publications and papers in this area (Payne & Richmond, 1984). Overwhelmingly the underlying theme of the articles has been the negative effects that these constructs can have on academic and social success. It has been forwarded that two out of ten people suffer some form of communication apprehension (CA). The focus of this paper is on communication apprehension as a construct and on how it affects the behavior and lifestyle of an individual.
...ic heritability studies revealed that there is a very strong heritability factor as the cause of stuttering. Moreover, current research is trying to find specific genes responsible for stuttering however no clear results could be obtained yet. The studies indicated that the influence of heritability can be up to 85% and led researchers to find out the remaining. Parental factors, unique life-events and learning factors are found to be important especially by developmental stuttering and that they may affect the individuals through their life time. As it can be understood from these studies, it is now generally accepted that fluency is a multidimensional skill reflecting a complex coordination of many extrinsic and intrinsic factors (Karrass et al., 2006). That is why; it also becomes important to focus on many different aspects during the treatment of the stutters.
According to Underhill (2005) Word stress is an expression used to describe the accent or a highlight given to a particular part of a word and it is relatively consistent element of a word when spoken in isolation. Stress may occur on the first, middle or on the last syllable in a word. Words of more than one syllable usually consist of stressed and unstressed syllables. In English there is a unique correlation between the different parts of a word. Words with two or more syllables usually have ‘prominence’ or ‘stress’ in one of its syllables; that syllable is apparent as more prominent, because of a multifaceted features such as loudness, length or change in the pitch than the other syllables in the word. If the learner does not stress one syllable more than the others, or stresses the wrong syllable, the listener may face a difficulty in identifying the word and this is due to the stress pattern of the word is a significant part of its identity for native speaker. According to Dalton and Seidlhofer (2000) there is great deal of evidence that native speakers rely very much on the stress patterns of words when they are listening. Underhill, (2005) states that the production of stress is generally whispered to depend on the speaker using more muscular energy than is used for unstressed syllables. In other words when the stressed syllable is produced, the muscles used to exorcize air from lungs are very active. Therefore stress considered as a powerful element in words.