I must admit I have no deep knowledge of stuttering, but I always thought it was a psychological thing. So if you teach someone a sign language, will they continue stuttering? On the same note, are there native sign language speakers who stutter?
Maybe if you sign with Parkinsons…
I was thinking maybe some kind of hand/arm injury, but Parkinsons makes more sense.
That was my first thought too
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Thanks for telling these anecdotes! Sign languages intrigue me, as their modality is so different. But when you actually look at it closer, you see how they’re not really all that different to phonetic languages. It’s mostly the interface that’s different. The concept behind it is the same.
My guess was that teaching a stuttering person a sign language could be a possible solution to overcome that psychological barrier since the way you produce communication is fundamentally different. If the subconscious can’t figure out how to stutter with hands, might it drop it when signing? Anyways, I do think that stuttering for native signers exists, as it seems only natural. I don’t think that phenomena is bound to articulatory-auditory languages. But maybe as a nonnative this might not be so intuitive…
✌️🖕🖕🖕👊 means nnnnno. Joke aside idk… It would be hesitation rather than stutter
Stuttering is a failure connection between brain, lungs and mouth. Has nothing to do with hands so no, sign language people don’t stutter.
Source: I stutter since 4yo and spent a lot of time with other stuttering people helping them.
I imagine that a failure of connection between brain and hands is possible though. We wouldn’t call it “stutter” normally (it would probably surface as some kind of tremors), but effectively it would be a sign language alternative to stuttering.
Reminded me of the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking called T-T-T-Today, Junior. I couldn’t find it on the official site cause it’s not very well designed for search. I’m assuming my link will give the same content I originally heard. It was pretty heartbreaking.
If it’s psychological, it might happen sort of. We are quite prone to subconscious suggestions, so someone in a susceptible state of mind could perhaps convince themselves to unintentionally create such a type of stutter.
My brother had a stutter. It’s a bit psychological and a bit just technique. A lot of people can learn to drop their stutter with physical therapy and speech training, like my brother did. I doubt a stutter could even manifest in sign language with the exception of other issues that cause involuntary hand movement (like tourettes or other disorders that come with tics or muscle spasms), considering it’s not a problem in the brain but somewhere between the brain and your mouth/lungs. But nobody would call that a stutter.
Oh I see. Thanks for the insight! So that means no stuttering.
