Accent (sociolinguistics)
In sociolinguistics, an accent (also brogue)[1] is a way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual.[2] An accent may be identified with the locality in which its speakers reside (a regional or geographical accent), the socioeconomic status of its speakers, their ethnicity (an ethnolect), their caste or social class (a social accent), or influence from their first language (a foreign accent).[3]
This article is about a way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual. For the prominence of a single syllable or word, see Stress (linguistics). For the symbols on top of letters, see Diacritic. For other uses, see Accent (disambiguation).Accents typically differ in quality of voice, pronunciation and distinction of vowels and consonants, stress, and prosody.[4] Although grammar, semantics, vocabulary, and other language characteristics often vary concurrently with accent, the word "accent" may refer specifically to the differences in pronunciation, whereas the word "dialect" encompasses the broader set of linguistic differences. "Accent" is often a subset of "dialect".[2]
History[edit]
As human beings spread out into isolated communities, stresses and peculiarities develop. Over time, they can develop into identifiable accents. In North America, the interaction of people from many ethnic backgrounds contributed to the formation of the different varieties of North American accents. It is difficult to measure or predict how long it takes an accent to form. Accents from Canada, South Africa, Australia and the United States for example, developed from the combinations of different accents and languages in various societies and their effect on the various pronunciations of British settlers.[5]
Accents may vary within regions of an area in which a uniform language is spoken. In some cases, such as regional accents of English in the United States, accents can be traced back to when an area was settled and by whom. Areas like the city of New Orleans in Louisiana that are, or at one point in time were, semi-isolated have distinct accents due to the absence of contact between regions. Isolated regions allow dialects to expand and evolve independently. Social and economic factors can also influence the way people speak.[6]
Non-native accents[edit]
Accents of non-native speakers may be the result of the speaker's native language. Each language contains distinct sets of sounds. At around 12 months of age, human infants will pick out which sounds they need to learn their language. As they get older it becomes increasingly harder to learn these "forgotten" sounds. A prime example of this can be seen between German and English—the "w" and "th" sounds, like in the English words "wish" and "this" respectively, do not exist in German—the closest sounds are "v" and "z". As a result, many English-speaking Germans pronounce "wish" as "vish" and "this" as "zis". A similar disjunction occurs in German-speaking native English speakers, who may find it difficult to pronounce the vowels in German words such as "schön" (beautiful) and "müde" (tired).[10]
An important factor in predicting the degree to which the accent will be noticeable (or strong) is the age at which the non-native language was learned.[11][12] The critical period theory states that if learning takes place after the critical period (usually considered around puberty) for acquiring native-like pronunciation, an individual is unlikely to acquire a native-like accent.[11] This theory, however, is quite controversial among researchers.[13] Although many subscribe to some form of the critical period, they either place it earlier than puberty or consider it more of a critical "window," which may vary from one individual to another and depend on factors other than age, such as length of residence, similarity of the non-native language to the native language, and the frequency with which both languages are used.[12]
Nevertheless, children as young as 6 at the time of moving to another country often speak with a noticeable non-native accent as adults.[8] There are also rare instances of individuals who are able to pass for native speakers even if they learned their non-native language in early adulthood.[14] However, neurological constraints associated with brain development appear to limit most non-native speakers’ ability to sound native-like.[15] Most researchers agree that for most adults, acquiring a native-like accent in a non-native language is near impossible.[11]