Expressing the experience of communicative disability: Metaphors of persons who stutter

Abstract

Fluent speakers are unaware of the profound impact that stuttering has on the lives of persons who stutter. In an attempt to understand the effect that stuttering has on persons’ lives, stutterers were asked to provide their metaphors describing their experiences with stuttering. Responses (n = 329) are coded into 13 different, but often related, categories of metaphors. In general, all participants’ metaphors for stuttering were negative and reflected stutterers’ ubiquitous, unpredictable and labored difficulty in speech production, as well as the social stigmatization that accompanies this communicative disorder.