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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 10/6/01
Time: 1:35:38 PM
Remote Name: 134.29.30.167
Dear Daniele,
Thank you for your insightful inquiry. I imagine that many people will have an opinion about your theory. All I will say that I have had the same experience as you. I don't stutter very much in English (my native language) but I stuttered a good bit in Turkish (my second language learned as a young adult). I generally attributed my increased stuttering in Turkish to my own need to try to talk as well in that language as I could in English (which was impossible). I then began to associate speaking Turkish with stuttering, consciously and unconsciously. Over the years, as I have systematically forgotten most of my conversational Turkish, the stuttering loomed even larger than it did when I was at my peak competence. But recently, I spoke at length with another person who stutters in Turkish. The conversational ability began to return, but surprisingly, I stuttered much less in that situation! Maybe my speech-language pathologist mode made the difference.
Whether or not different amounts of stuttering in different languages results from a neurophysiological difference in the way the new language (in your case, several new languages) is (are) processed, I don't know. Frankly, I suspect it is more complicated than all of this, given the multiplicity of ways languages can be learned, practiced, remembered, and used.
Indeed, this is a fascinating area--one that we can use lots of additional research. Thanks again for leading off with a great question.
Ken