Accent

An accent describes a variation or distinction in word pronunciation. Accents can vary within a language - for example in the United States there are northern accents and southern accents within the English language.

Individuals from Britain are said to have a British accent. Accents also occur when some individuals are speaking a learned language, especially if that language was learned after adolescence. Some second language speakers have accents and some do not. Psychological research interests regarding accents include cognitive processes and how accents affect our perceptions and judgments of others.

Accents can be used to identify a person's status or social group and can sometimes be used to determine ingroup/outgroup status. Dysprosody which is a neurological speech disorder that alters the rhythm, volume, and prosody of speech so that it sometimes sounds as if the person is speaking with a foreign accent.