The paper mainly concerns problems of translating into Russian the English term “accent” and “attributes + accent” (British accent, cockney accent, Southern accent. etc.) which arise due to false equivalency of “accent” and Russian «акцент». As a linguistic technical term “accent” means “pronunciation of a variety of English”. By varieties, we mean any linguistic entity defined by regional and social variation. Thus, every British dialect has its own accent together with grammatical and lexical characteristics. The variety called Standard English has its accent termed “RP”.  The Russian term «акцент» means deviation from Russian pronunciation standard due to the interference of a mother tongue, i.e. foreign accent. The basic semantic element of “accent” is variety, while «акцент» focuses on “deviation from standard”.                 Moreover, a different sociolinguistic situation in the two language communities modifies target language translations in this terminological sphere.  The social status as well as attitudinal factors must be familiar to the translator for him/her not to distort social and cultural modality of literary texts.  Ex. “here goes the theory that an English accent makes everyone sound smart.” (Pronounced in an American context) A registered translation “И сейчас будет предположение, что английский акцент позволяет всем звучать умнее.”  - sounds very strange, like «говорить по-русски с русским акцентом». A better translation can be «с британским произношением». The translator should be careful not only with “false friends, false equivalence” but also he should be aware of the different functional (social and cultural) load of the description of pronunciation in English and Russian.