Moving beyond accent: Social and cultural realities of living with many tongues

Everyone speaks with an accent. Today's global economy depends on the interaction of people from all corners of the world who speak many different languages. The interaction can be challenging. Some accents are regional, others are foreign. The accent of a person tells his other life story. Intelligibility is compromised when an accent is too "thick" and hard to understand. This article presents a discussion of some of the fundamentals surrounding accent: it seeks a macrodefinition of accent, proposes a paradigm shift, and provides some clinical suggestions for moving beyond accent.