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What do we call, when a person pronounce a few words in some unique way of his own, i.e., a wrong pronunciation and this is not because of any speech disorder. It's just that for them such words are tongue-twister.

This usually happens in case of speaking a foreign language, and speaker cannot avoid mispronouncing some words.

I can use "dialect" or "speech style" to say a sentence like this:

this person has a speech style of his own.

I don't want to use words like: mispronounce/wrong/peculiar.

Do we have a name for this type of speaking manner, or any suitable phrase to describe this situation?

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  • Like an idiolect? Apr 20, 2017 at 2:02
  • Welcome to ELU, aiaa. Did you do any research to find an answer to your question? If so you should tell us about it. In any case it looks like you've got a good one-word answer to a single-word request from Cascabel: idiolect. Look it up.
    – Xanne
    Apr 20, 2017 at 4:04
  • "Idiolect" is a perfect word here. @Cascabel Please submit this as an answer and I'd be more than happy to accept it as an answer.
    – threeA's
    Apr 20, 2017 at 8:21
  • @Xanne Yes, I did some research on my part. I found a word - "parlance", but I wasn't quite sure of its aptness here.
    – threeA's
    Apr 20, 2017 at 8:22
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    @Lawrence: Yes, I meant "a few words". Thanks for the correction.
    – threeA's
    Apr 21, 2017 at 1:16

1 Answer 1

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idiolect

  • The speech patterns unique to an individual.
    Notes: 1. These speech patterns consist of the diction, idioms, and pronunciations that are unique to any individual, hence everyone

Online Dictionary of Language Terminology

Every person has an idiolect that is influenced by a range of factors including class, family, place of birth, friends, lifestyle, etc. Idiolects usually evolve through contact with other idiolects, and will change over the course of a person´s lifetime.

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