The role of a foreign accent in the social and personal identification of a speaker

Moscow State Linguistic University, Ostozhenka Str., 38, 119034 Moscow, Russia

^* Corresponding author: neunerin@gmail.com

Abstract

The intensification of migration processes in Europe necessitates studying the foreign accent as a means of social and personal diagnostics within multicultural communities in the light of the increased number of cases of the “accent-based” discrimination, since the foreign accent is perceived negatively by native speakers and causes less confidence in a speaker. Studies carried out in recent decades suggest that external signs are gradually losing their leading role in social identification, giving way to more reliable and objective means – pronunciation characteristics, since they are practically impossible to control. For this reason, an experimental phonetic research was carried out on the material of the German language in order to identify the nature of the influence of accentedness on the social identification of Russian-speaking immigrants from the position of German native speakers, as well as to determine the acceptation limits of accentedness degree of Russian-speaking bilinguals. With regard to the results of the study, it was found that a strong accent negatively affects the overall assessment of an individual in terms of the educational level, income and success of a speaker, while in terms of personal characteristics there is no pronounced negative attitude towards people speaking with a Russian accent, regardless of the degree of accentedness.