Abstract

For over 60 years, Swedes have been exposed to spoken English in the media. This exposure has been complemented by English language teaching in school, where British English has been the primary foreign language taught since the 1950s. With the explosion of television channels over the past decade or so, this exposure has increased. This paper examines through comparison with a body of New Zealand listeners, whose English language television exposure is only 19% home grown, the degree to which the Swedes’ media exposure to English, primarily US and British, has resulted in (1) attitudinal responses to a range of English accents which are similar to the New Zealander’s responses, (2) an ability to perceive the country of origin of an English speaker and (3) an appreciation of the reflection of social status in the accent of an English speaker. The results indicate that the Swedish palate differs in both sensitivity and preference from the New Zealanders, yet in a more subtle manner than expected.

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