Everyone’s use of the sound system is unique and personal.And few of us use sounds consistently in all
contexts(We rarely adapt our sounds alone –more likely we mind our
language in the popular sense, by attending to our lexical choices, grammar and phonology.)Most human beings adjust their speech to resemble that of those around them.This is very easy to
demonstrate,as when some vogue words from broadcasting surf a wave of popularity before settling down in
the language more modestly or passing out of use again.This is particularly true of sounds,in the sense that some identifiable groups of people share (with some
individual variation)a collection of sounds that are not found elsewhere, and these are accents.We think of
accents as marking out people by geographical region and,to a less degree, by social class or education.Thinking of social class, we might speak of a public school accent (stiff upper lip and cut glass vowels). But
we do not observe occupational accents and we are unlikely to speak of a baker’s, soldier’s or accountant’s
accent (whereas we might study their special uses of lexis and grammar)This is not the place to study in detail the causes of such accents or, for example, how they are changing.Language researchers may wish to record regional variant forms and their frequency.
