Native English-Swedish Bilinguals in Sweden : Across the borders of the three circles of English

With nearly two billion speakers across the world, English has come to exist in all shapes and colors. Many functions and contexts in which English is found in the world are accounted for in the massive scientific effort to document the language’s global development. World English, New Englishes, and English as a Lingua Franca are concepts that aim to explain the different forms that the language takes in different countries. This paper explores the global development of English in its Swedish form, but shifts focus from second language English speakers to the native speakers of English who grow up in Sweden with parents from English-speaking countries. With most of the Swedish population being highly proficient in English, native English speakers in Sweden are more exposed to non-native English varieties spoken by second language speakers than the varieties used in their heritage countries. To understand how they are affected by their non-native environment, I interviewed seven students from an English heritage language instruction class at a Swedish upper secondary school. The 16- and 17-year-old students had parents from USA, UK, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, and unique stories about their experiences with the English language. Each student was interviewed individually and asked questions about their language abilities, their varieties, and their connections to their heritage countries. Information about their linguistic and biographical backgrounds was used to analyze the differences in their perspectives. The students considered it a great advantage that their native language was so widely spread, but they acknowledged that it to some extent led to them being disconnected from their heritage cultures, in some cases more than others