British or American English? : An investigation of awareness of the differences in British and American vocabulary and spelling

Sammanfattning: English has, for some time, been one of the core subjects in the Swedish Educational Establishment and the English teaching has successfully enhanced Swedish students’ knowledge and competence of the language. The differences between American and British English are rarely a subject for consideration though, and the aim in this essay is to investigate what abilities, if any, Swedish students possess in order to distinguish between American and British English spelling and vocabulary. This essay will contain a limited study, which includes a sample of 97 individuals who attend an upper secondary school in Halmstad. The results are gathered and analyzed with a quantitative method.                       The conclusion suggests that Swedish students possess some abilities to distinguish between American and British English. However, none of the participants in the investigation were able to be consistent in their English use or stick to one specific variety of English. All participants mixed American and British English and they did so habitually.                       Because of the limitation of the study, further research needs to be conducted in order to determine whether the findings in this investigation can be supported or not. Similar research could be conducted elsewhere in Sweden with a similar scope or with a broader perspective including pronunciation and grammar.