In a comprehensive treatment of the significance of sounding foreign for second language (L2) speakers, the author centers her discussion around research about SLA, on the one hand, and L2 instruction, on the other. As such, the scope of this book will be useful to new entrants to and seasoned researchers in the field of accent as it relates to these two domains.

For newcomers to the field, Moyer does an excellent job of synthesizing research across a number of areas related to accent. Where deemed necessary, she provides a historical review and critique of prominent theories of SLA and their applicability to ongoing discussions about accent bias in call centers, in classrooms with foreign instructors, and in courts of law with regard to work and housing. If Moyer’s assessment of the literature is correct, and intelligibility is increasingly becoming a reasonable standard over nativeness (p. 172), then there needs to be more discussion about the ubiquitous use of native accents in speech technologies and the role they play in assimilating accented speakers to some native norm. A discussion about speech technologies, beyond that used for language instruction, is noticeably absent in this text.

For seasoned researchers, Moyer raises unanswered questions in our field and makes thoughtful recommendations about methodology. She takes on what she sees as an underlying weakness of L2 scholarship that has primarily taken a “deficit view” of SLA—that is to say, what L2 speakers lack vis-à-vis native speakers—and she asks us to balance this approach to accent by investigating what nonnative speakers actually do to accomplish their communicative goals and to examine the nuances of social, psychological, and cognitive factors that impinge on and provide context for the complex skill of accent.

This book will serve as a useful resource. Moyer has respectfully and thoughtfully created a depository for the substantial work that has been done in the area of foreign accent and nonnative speech.