The results from the study confirmed that a vast majority of the pupils would
choose and felt most familiar with AmE vocabulary since 74% chose AmE words
in Part 1 and 81% did so in Part 2. The variety that seemed to have the higher
status was AmE and most pupils thought that this variety sounded most natural
and was the easiest to understand. Swedish pupils are influenced by and exposed
to the language in the media, principally AmE, and this is one possible
explanation to the result.
The comparison between the genders showed that both boys and girls
preferred AmE but it also showed that boys did so to a greater extent than girls.
70% of the girls favored AmE words in contrast to the boys where 80% favored
AmE words. According to previous theories, BrE has an overt prestige which is
something that appeals to girls; whereas boys are attracted to the roughness
associated with a covert prestige, in this case AmE which is associated with
masculinity.