This chapter explores the emerging field of Dysfluency Studies, an interdisciplinary approach to stammering that is rooted in the humanities but in dynamic conversation with clinical practice.
Drawing on the work of the Wellcome-funded project ‘Metaphoric Stammers and Embodied Speakers’ (encompassing SLTs, researchers in the humanities and creative artists), the chapter expands a clinical understanding of ‘dysfluency’ to incorporate its resonance across literary texts, cultural studies, film, music and visual arts. Challenging cultural narratives that represent stammering as a speech ‘disorder’ in search of a cure, we explore the emerging counternarratives that redefine the stammer in terms of vocal difference and diversity, counternarratives alert to the generative, expressive power of dysfluent speech.