From sound to social meaning

Abstract This concluding chapter is written by two francophone researchers who, for years, have tackled the notion of accents through different angles, different standpoints and above all, different experiences. For they are not only scholars specialized in the field of accents, but also people whose entire lives are embedded in accent matters. Whether it is about themselves, people close to them or the subjects encountered in their surveys and fieldworks, they live in a kind of constant state of ‘participant observation’, wherein they continuously scrutinize the diversity and complexity of accents under their linguistic, social and pragmatic aspects. Hence why they were assigned to write the final chapter of this book, which is not a conclusion nor a synthesis, but a focus on the pragmatic aspects of accents through specific and situated points of views.