The paper explores the origin of a foreign accent in non-native speech. Deviations from the pronunciation  norm in the articulation of English vowels and consonants by Ukrainian learners of English form a dynamic system of specific features correlating with the degree of foreign language competence. Phonetic interference of native language production and perception habits into the foreign language performance has its psychological and linguistic reasons. Divergence of phonological and phonetic features of native and foreign languages, automated articulations transferred into the foreign speech shape the specific character of the foreign accent. The contrastive analysis of the articulatory bases of English and Ukrainian as well as the analysis of actual phonetic deviations enabled to single out features of Ukrainian English accent.