Accent, intelligibility, mental health, and trauma

The aim of this article is fourfold: (1) to define the notion of ‘accent’ from two linguistic and socio‐psychological perspectives; (2) to examine the multi‐faceted dimensions of accent in terms of the (bio‐)linguistic mind and the social mind; (3) to throw a spotlight on the convergence of mental health and accent trauma by presenting a forensic case study of mass murder and suicide committed by an Asian‐American, Jiverly Wong, who was traumatized by social exclusion and bullying, possibly due to his limited English proficiency in the form of non‐native speech traits exhibited in his accent; and (4) to present evidence from neurolinguistic (f‐MRI) studies of social pain caused by social exclusion. The discussion here is framed particularly in the context of intelligibility and interpretability of speech in cross‐cultural communication through world Englishes and the wide‐ranging negative reactions to people who speak English with a foreign accent.