[ Contents ]
From: Terry Dartnall
Date: 10/16/03
Time: 2:54:49 AM
Remote Name: 132.234.9.165
Hi Barbara
I think the difference between a covert stutterer and a fluent person is two-fold. First, we do stutter. How often we do so seems to vary from person to person. I don’t openly stutter much at all. I can pass for fluent most of the time.
The other thing that seems to characterise us is the ducking and weaving I talk about in my paper. We might seem to be fluent, but we’re ducking and weaving, word-avoiding, planning ahead a whole lot. And that’s stressful!
Mind you, even that varies – for me, anyway. It depends on who I’m with and how tired I am, and things like that.
But there is an anomaly here, isn’t there? Russ Hicks calls coverts “stutterers who don’t stutter.” I sometimes say that I stutter, when I don’t actually stutter much at all. Over a certain period of time – a day say – I might not stutter at all. So am I fluent during that time?
Maybe it depends on what we mean by “fluent”. If we’re simply referring to behaviour, then, yes, I’m fluent. But if we’re referring to “being able to say exactly what I want to say,” then I’m not fluent.
Maybe it’s a bit like speaking a foreign language. What makes you fluent in French? Is it “sounding just like a French person,” or is it “sounding just like a French person and ALSO being able to say whatever you want to in French”? It can’t be the former, because you might be able to sound like a French person without knowing much French at all.” I think it’s the latter. You’re not fluent if you can’t say whatever you want to in French, and, by the same token, you’re not fluent if you’re a covert stammerer who can’t say whatever he or she wants to.
Hmmm… that can’t be entirely right, because it means that someone with a poor vocabulary isn’t fluent. Interesting, isn’t it? Thank you for your interesting question.
Terry