Accent and Dialect

Dialect is a specific variety of English that is different from other varieties in three specific ways: lexis, grammar and phonology. English dialects may be different from each other, but all speakers within the English-speaking world can still generally understand them.

 Accent on the other hand, refers to differences in the sound patterns of a specific dialect. For example a speaker from the East-end of London may have a cockney accent, this will involve certain features including; glottal stopping where the letter t is pronounced with the back of the throat, and also L-vocalisation where the L at the end of words becomes a vowel sound ‘pal –pow’.  In simple terms dialect is the term for a variety of linguistic features, one of which is accent. True dialect speakers are relatively rare, but despite popular belief we all speak with an accent.