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Philology. Theory & Practice
  • Original research article
  • June 3, 2026
  • Open access

Methodological approaches to studying foreign accent as social signal

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Abstract

The aim of the study is to develop an integrative multi-level model of foreign accent as a socially functioning signal. The paper provides a theoretical and methodological analysis of contemporary approaches to accent research based on Germanic languages (primarily English and German) and proposes a structural model of its functioning across the levels of speech production, perception, interpretation, and social evaluation. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the development of an original four-component model (phonetic realization – perceptual salience – cognitive interpretation – social attribution) that accounts for the transformation of phonological transfer from L1 to L2 into socially meaningful outcomes. The model provides a unified account of how speech production, perception, and evaluation are interconnected, conceptualizing accent as the result of sequential multi-level processing rather than as a direct consequence of interference. Despite a substantial body of empirical research, foreign accent studies remain methodologically fragmented, with different approaches focusing on isolated fields of analysis and lacking an explicit account of their interaction. Consequently, there is no integrative framework so far that explains how acoustic variation gives rise to higher-level interpretation and social evaluation. The results consist in the systematization and integration of the key methodological approaches to accent research – phonetic, perceptual, cognitive, and socio-evaluative – as corresponding to distinct yet interrelated levels of its functioning. It is demonstrated that their isolated application does not provide a comprehensive account, whereas the identified methodological fragmentation is overcome within the proposed integrative model linking acoustic variation to perceptual salience, cognitive processing, and social attribution. Within this framework, foreign accent is conceptualized as a socially operative signal, and the proposed model establishes a unified analytical basis for integrating experimental phonetics with socio- and psycholinguistic approaches.

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Author information

Marianna Viktorovna Popova

PhD

Moscow State Linguistic University

About this article

Publication history

  • Received: March 3, 2026.
  • Published: June 3, 2026.

Keywords

  • иноязычный акцент
  • восприятие акцента
  • когнитивная обработка речи
  • социальная категоризация
  • фонологическая интерференция
  • лингвистический корпус
  • foreign accent
  • accent perception
  • processing fluency
  • social attribution
  • phonological transfer (interference)
  • linguistic corpus

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© 2026 The Author(s)
© 2026 Gramota Publishing, LLC

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)