A Study of the Effects of English Accent Differences on Pragmatic Strategies in Verbal Communication

Abstract

The process of globalization is reshaping the phonological landscape of English, and regional accent differences are gradually becoming a significant variable in cross-cultural communication. By empirically analyzing the discourse behaviors of different accent groups in business negotiation, medical consultation, and social conflict, this study found that the degree of phonological variability is a core predictor of strategy failure. When the vowel space is shifted above a threshold, the adoption probability of direct speech strategies is significantly reduced and the strategy selection pattern is forced to shift to ambiguous expressions. Evidence at the neurocognitive level suggests that phonological deficits lead to crowding of cognitive resources, with an abnormal increase in prefrontal activation strength of up to 42%. Specific pragmatic strategies such as prosodic compensation and cultural schema adaptation are effective in dissolving communication barriers caused by accent differences. Technical constraints in videoconferencing have a superimposed effect with speech variation, and compounding barriers trigger the need for multimodal strategy integration. The risk grading system of speech features and the dynamic strategy adjustment system constructed in this study can provide precise intervention targets for cross-cultural training.