What is Stammer Time? (part 2)

In part 1, I described the moment of stuttering in terms of MC Hammer’s immortal hit record, “U Can’t Touch This”. Here, I will develop my thoughts about Stammer Time in terms of the “Bullet Time” filming technique most famously associated with the Matrix film series. Check out the video clip:

Time is simultaneously sped up and slowed down. Could something like this be happening during stuttering? The idea is not as far-fetched as it might seem, because we know that perceptual time is not the same as linear time. “Time flies when you’re having fun” is a popular aphorism, and is also a real and measurable effect. Examining first person experience during the moment of stuttering could reveal something crucial about our interactions with the world around us.

This view of stuttering as tiny rifts in time becomes especially interesting with interactions involving groups of people. Whilst it is possible to stutter alone, it is only when there is an audience that stuttering really comes alive. Perhaps we shouldn’t be thinking of stuttering as happening in the mind, or in the brain, or even as being embodied. Instead, stuttering may be best conceived as extended throughout our immediate surroundings. This includes the thoughts and feelings of interlocutors. We already know that stuttering is not entirely within the province of the speaker – it varies according to audience, time and place. The people we talk to, and the situations that both they and we find ourselves in, extend the stuttering experience. Thus, the stuttering occurs not only in us, but also in our listeners. We can be sympathetic to our listeners because, unlike us, they do not have a first-person knowledge of stuttering to draw on as a guide to what is happening. Instead, they are thrown in at the deep end, often with little point of reference. Some listeners cope better than others.

There is a slightly different way to say the same thing. It is that appraising the loci of stuttered instances can underpin a more precise description of psycholinguistic convention than has been available through any purely theoretical account. Stuttering is more fascinating than is commonly thought, since understanding stuttering is understanding human communication. Everyone benefits from an improvement to our understanding of communication. Thus, radical priorities in stuttering are more profound than a simple increase in awareness of stuttering. Stuttering need not be presented as some simplistic anomaly to talking that society needs to find better ways to work around. Rather, the radical priority is that an improved understanding of stuttering will make social interactions better for everyone, not just for people who stutter.