Often deaf people have a distinctive way of speaking, even when pronouncing words correctly. Can anyone please elaborate exactly what distinguishes deaf speech from hearing speech?
It is not my intent to be insulting, nor to lump all deaf people together, you are right that (North American) deaf people have an accent. If I were trying to convey it in written dialog, I would use harsh-sounding words like:
clumsy
hollow-sounding
labored
breathy
deliberate
paced
choppy
I hope this helps.
The extent of the spectrum is phenomenal—there is no typical ‘deaf voice’. It can range from a barely comprehensible speech pattern which closely resembles that of a severely retarded person’s, to no discernible impediment whatsoever—with every conceivable shade of variation in between. Usually, but not always, there is a strong correlation between the quality of a deaf person’s voice and the amount of residual hearing that they have. A person who is completely and profoundly deaf and has been since birth, will usually have a voice which is difficult to understand. A person who has some residual hearing will usually be easier to understand. A good example of the worst possible deaf voice imaginable can be heard in the movie Children of a Lesser god. Marlee Matlin’s voice in the scene where she’s screaming at William Hurt to “hear my voice, see my lips” is about as bad as it gets. People who have deaf voices that incomprehensible or worse almost always elect to remain mute. Christy Smith, the Deaf contestant on season six of Survivor, is a good example of an average, middle-of-the-road deaf voice. People frequently mistake this type of deaf voice for an Eastern European accent—which amuses me to no end. Some deaf accents (such as my wife’s) sound like the voice of a person with a stuffy nose. That’s usually about as good as it can possibly get with a profoundly deaf person, but once in a very great while you will encounter a profoundly deaf person who has no discernible deaf voice whatsoever. These are very rare, and I’ve only met two in my entire life. This is invariably the product of years (if not decades) of intense oral training. If you meet a deaf person like this, you can be rest assured that their parents are quite affluent.
Thank you for the very comphrensive and thoughtful responses. The Eastern European thing explains a lot.