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阅读理解
Two year s ago, Wendy Ha snip, 47，experienced a brain injury that left her speechle s s for two week s．When she finally recovered, she found her self talking with what seemed to be a French accent．“I phoned a friend the other day, and she spent the fir st ten minute s laughing, ” Ha snip said at the time, “while I have nothing again st the French．”
Ha snip suffered from foreign accent syndrome(外国口音综合症), a rare condition in which people find them selve s speaking their own language like someone from a foreign country．The condition u sually occur s in people who have experienced a head injury or a stroke-a sudden lo s s of con sciou sne s s, sen sation, or movement cau sed by a blocked or broken blood ve s selin the brain．
The condition wa s fir st identified during the Second World War in a Norwegian woman who se head wa s injured during an attack by the German military．The woman recovered but wa s left with a German-sounding accent, to the horror of fellow villager s who avoided her after that．
Re searcher s have di scovered that the combined effect of the damage to several part s of the brain make s victim s lengthen certain syllable, mi spronounce sound s, and change the normal pitch(音高)of their voice．Tho se change s in speech add up to what sound s like a foreign accent．
Another re searcher, a phonetician, say s victim s of the syndrome don't acquire a true foreign accent．Their strangely changed speech only re semble s the foreign accent with which it ha s a few sound s in common．
When an Engli sh woman named Annie recently developed foreign accent syndrome after a stroke, she spoke with what seemed to be a Scotti sh accent．However, Annie' s Scotti sh coworker s said she didn't sound at all like a Scot．
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