Foreign accent as a dynamic speech phenomenon

This contribution focuses on the nature of the foreign accent as a dynamic speech phenomenon. The paper outlines the principal features of foreign accent in bilinguals’ speech at the segmental and suprasegmental levels which clearly differentiate it from the native speech. Foreign language learners often encounter various communication challenges due to a foreign accent in their speech, primarily influenced by their native language, phonetic background and speech habits. The study states that the foreign accent as a dynamic speech phenomenon is a set of typical deviations from the normative pronunciation that are pertinent to a bilingual’s foreign speech. This article looks into the general overview of a foreign accent in bilinguals’ speech and determines the impact of both the segmental domain, which consists of individual language sounds, and the prosodic sphere (rhythm, stress, intonation) on detecting accentedness variations. The paper also defines the notion of foreign accent and outlines its main linguistic and non-linguistic features, presenting a detailed typology of foreign accent, and the correlation of distinctive features of bilinguals’ speech that prevail mainly in articulatory, acoustic and auditory spheres. The research firmly proves that the key reasons of the occurrence of the phonetic deviations on the segmental level are different from the those on the prosodic level. Particular attention is given to the origin of the foreign accent in a bilingual’s speech within the framework of a well-established cognitive and discourse paradigm. The paper elaborates a solid and comprehensive theoretical background for the analysis of the interaction between cognitive interfering and linguistic interfered elements in the phonetic system of Ukrainian English speech.