British, American or Mid-Atlantic English : What accent do Swedish learner use and where do they get their influences from?

Abstract: Titel: British, American or Mid-Atlantic English: What accent do Swedish learners use and where do they get their influences from? Författare: Jessica Pettersson Engelska C, terminsuppsats 2008 Antal sidor: 38 Abstract: The main purpose of this paper was to determine whether learners in lower secondary school used the British English accent, the American English accent, or if they perhaps mixed the two accents. I also wanted to find out from where the students got their influences. It is no longer prohibited in the Swedish curriculum to use other accents than the British one, and due to that it was interesting to see if the learners began to get their influences from somewhere else but their teacher. Teachers are also free to choose what accent they want to use. It often seems to be the case that learners take after their teacher’s pronunciation, but it is widely believed that they are also influenced by the English they hear in their spare time. Most of the learners in this investigation said in the survey that they preferred watching TV-shows and movies from the USA and therefore appeared to prefer an American accent. My informant study shows that most of the learners who took part in the test spoke with a British accent when reading single words, but when it came to reading sentences a mix of the two major varieties became noticeable. The results indicate that learners are first and foremost influenced by their teacher and what accent he or she uses and to a somewhat lesser extent by the English they come across when they are not in school. Nyckelord: British English, American English, Mid-Atlantic English, pronunciation, accents, influences.