MovieChat Forums > Faces in the Crowd (2011) Discussion > Anna's therapist is deaf, read lips but ...

Anna's therapist is deaf, read lips but can pronounce words accurately.


That is so pathetically insulting. Who ever wrote the script must think we are all morons. A person who is deaf can never speak normally under any circumstances. A person must need to hear his/her own voice in order to coordinate a word, less a sentence or a speech.

Thinking about it, though, it makes sense that people who are severely deaf (albeit not profoundly deaf) across the board would have a 'deaf voice' or 'deaf accent'. If you've ever listened to the sound output of some of these hearing aids, the amplification for some of the models sounds a lot like a 'deaf voice'... You can hear with great amplification... but the sounds you hear are what you emulate... and what you emulate is the amplified sounds, which are not normal sounds... so you end up sounding like the amplified sounds... which to a hearing person, is borderline bizarre.



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Nope. I know two deaf people whom you wouldn't know were deaf by their speech alone. I can't say how it's done and it's probably pretty rare, but they weren't born deaf (just like the woman in this movie) so that probably has a lot to do with it. Another person in my life who was born deaf can hardly speak aloud at all.

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I'm a bit tempted to say this is a troll but in the off chance it isn't I will reply.
First of all, you cannot lump all people with their various levels of hearing loss and various histories into one group. A person who is deaf can speak under a variety of circumstances. There are many profoundly deaf actors who you can hear speak. What determines "normal" speech will depend on how a person defines normal but since these people speak intelligibly and are able to be understood I would say they speak normally. They may have a deaf accent but that is an accent not an ability to speak.

Secondly, not everyone with a hearing loss has a deaf accent. Deaf accents will depend largely upon when the person lost his or her hearing. For example, I don't think Rush Limbaugh is considered to have a deaf accent but he had a profound hearing loss which came about in adulthood. I can't tell if the films therapist had a deaf accent as I heard a British accent only.

Thirdly, your assertion that a deaf accent is the result of amplification is false. The deaf accent is a result of a person imitating what he can hear and leaving out what he cannot hear. That happens regardless if amplification is present or not. This is also why a person can have normal hearing which is lost in adulthood and eventually adopting a deaf accent; it is the result of a persons being unable to hear the difference in his own voice (this also supports my previous paragraph). I'm not sure which sound amplification you have heard before but it is likely that what you were hearing the amplified levels as a hearing person whereas the person for whom the hearing aid had been programed for that individuals hearing loss to raise the frequency levels in which they needed help- not ALL frequency levels. So yes, it would sound bizarre to you but that is because it wasn't designed for your hearing level.

I myself have a severe to profound hearing loss. Most people don't even notice my speech patterns as being different. Those who pay attention to accents may think I sound like I'm from somewhere else (Scandinavian countries tend to be a popular guess). A few people have thought I had "lazy" speech in that I don't enunciate well. Only those who have experience in profoundly hard of hearing individuals recognize my deaf accent. All this is without any kind of speech therapy and having had a 80% hearing loss from a very young age.

I say this so you can compare to the character in the movie. Her hearing loss occurred at age 16, by then her speech patterns would have been well established. Considering her love of opera and the vocation she went into, she would have placed an importance on enunciation and worked to maintain a high level of speech. There is no reason to assume she would have a deaf accent.

What aggravated me was the idea that lip reading is an easy skill. Assuming she is deaf as a post as she asserts and has no hearing, she shouldn't have been able to understand the very first sentence we see Anna saying to her because the film was in the way. Secondly, lip reading is NOT EASY. Lip reading is most successful in individuals who have some residual hearing to assist. Even then, much of it relies upon intelligent guesswork. I found it more ridiculous that someone with zero hearing is able to lipread as well as the therapist does. At one point she tells a character to slow down so she could lip-read. A more accurate comment would have been "look at me so I can see your lips". I just take it as a artistic license for the movie.

I've read some of your other posts regarding accents on other movies and I think perhaps you have some sort of hang-up of your own that colors your views on accents.

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That is so pathetically insulting. Who ever wrote the script must think we are all morons. A person who is deaf can never speak normally under any circumstances. A person must need to hear his/her own voice in order to coordinate a word, less a sentence or a speech.


What's really pathetic and moronic is your inability to comprehend the movie. The deaf woman states clearly that she was not born deaf, but became deaf when she was sixteen.

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Exactly. She even says she recalled the music of Wagner.. Some people should just be more attentive before coming to a board to write some *beep*

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