Hi, I posted this reply in another thread. I hope it's useful to you.;-)
Accent is a very distinctive, strong oral
expression. It is heard when a person speaks,
and is that person's way of stressing certain
syllables in speaking. An accent can be
easily picked up in the way a person will
place emphasis in a speech pattern. You can
tell the country a person belongs to by their
accent, e.g. "Her strong German accent was not
hard to miss." You can also tell the social
class a person belongs to by their accent,
e.g. "Miss Gwyneth spoke in her distinctive,
highfalutin accent."
While accent is a person's strong emphasis on
certain syllables, dialect on the other hand
can be explained as the way a specific group
of people use language. Therefore their
grammar, pronunciation of words, and their
vocabulary will associate them with a
particular region or social class. For
example, the words used in language or
speaking can be changed, by spelling them or
pronouncing them differently, so that only
people from that particular region or class
will understand it. In my country for
example, standard english will say" I don't
like her very much." However, in our dialect
we might say instead, "I doh like she nah."
Same meaning, but different grammar and
pronounciation, and spelling. This type of
speech however is only used in common, or
private settings, not public settings. Hope
this helps.