PRONUNCIATION ACCENT IN THE SPEECH OF UKRAINIAN BILINGUALS

Abstract

The study assessed the relation between the overall degree of perceived foreign accent in nonnatives’ English speech and a variety of factors. Second-language learners often encounter communication challenges due to a foreign accent (FA) in their speech, influenced by their native language (L1). This FA can affect rhythm, intonation, stress, and the segmental domain, which consists of individual language sounds. This study looks into the segmental FA aspect, exploring listeners’ perceptions when Ukrainians interact with English. Another finding is that listeners tend to better discriminate degrees of accent when words are more native-like sounding. In this article we discuss the notion of “foreign accent” and review the relevant research into the various factors that contribute to one. The paper discusses the concept of foreign accent and how this phenomenon influences speech perception, i.e., how accurately the speech is perceived when spoken from a non-native English speaker, namely Ukrainian bilingual. Further, the study argues the impact of accent variation on the intelligibility level of the English spoken language with highlighting the accent-intelligibility relationship, which is considered as a crucial in many, many different spheres. This review paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the relationship between foreign accent, identity, accent discrimination, and second language acquisition (SLA). In this regard, the paper first examines the concepts of interlanguage and transfer, ongoing debates of nativeness and intelligibility principles as sound goals for language learning and teaching environments, and current perspectives on accent reduction, as well as the position of foreign accent in SLA. The author introduces accent as an identity marker and discusses this concept, followed by an examination of the social dimensions of foreign accent and how it can affect identity formation.