post #3437540 post #3433702 post #2872870 post #3737574

An accent is how one pronounces words of a language, based on a collection of distinct regional mannerisms. While all spoken language has an accent, this is not often conveyed in written text.

Accents are conveyed in dialogue and inner monologue by writting text phonetically, meaning the words are intentionally misspelt to communicate to the reader how they are being pronounced, which gives the impression of the character's accent. An accent may be further implied by cliche regional slang.

Things to look for...

• Intentional "misspellings" to convey how the words are being pronounced by the character, including dropped letters, combined words, extra consonants or vowels
• Some common examples: "yer/ya" (your) "ye/yew/ya" (you) "ze/de/da" (the) "dis" (this) "dat" (that) "tuh" (to) "ah" (I) "ah'll" (I'll), "dunno/dunnae" (don't know) "'ere" (here) "innit" (isn't it)
• Use of accent specific slang words (e.g. "arse"), or filler words (e.g., ending a sentence with interrogatives like huh? (US), eh? (Canada), yeah? (UK))
• A character speaking English with an accent from another language (e.g. French, Russian, German accents) may have words or short phrases from their first language sprinkled into their dialogue

Non-English Text

This tag should generally be reserved for English text, unless it can be verified that a foreign language is written to convey a specific accent, rather than a misspelling. A foreign language by itself is not an example of an accent. If you do tag this for a foreign language, please leave a note, or reason explaining why it applies. This is difficult to verify unless you know that language.

See also

• lisp
• stuttering