Speaker Discriminatory Power of Discourse Markers in Dutch

Discourse markers are used by every speaker in a conversation. They are often optional, and rather than a grammatical function, they often serve an attitudinal or discourse organizational purpose. A few examples are actually, well, and you know. Discoveries have been made about sociolinguistic differences in using these discourse markers. Not only differences between men and women were found, but also between different generations and even between ethnic groups. Information like this can be helpful for speaker classification in forensic research, which can be used in criminal cases. This thesis provides research on the differences in the use of two Dutch discourse markers, gewoon and eigenlijk, between age and sex. First, a frequency analysis was performed to see if the frequency of usage of each discourse marker varied between age groups, sex, and individual speakers. Only age and the inter-speaker level showed signs of speaker discriminatory power. Then, the syntactic context that...Show moreDiscourse markers are used by every speaker in a conversation. They are often optional, and rather than a grammatical function, they often serve an attitudinal or discourse organizational purpose. A few examples are actually, well, and you know. Discoveries have been made about sociolinguistic differences in using these discourse markers. Not only differences between men and women were found, but also between different generations and even between ethnic groups. Information like this can be helpful for speaker classification in forensic research, which can be used in criminal cases. This thesis provides research on the differences in the use of two Dutch discourse markers, gewoon and eigenlijk, between age and sex. First, a frequency analysis was performed to see if the frequency of usage of each discourse marker varied between age groups, sex, and individual speakers. Only age and the inter-speaker level showed signs of speaker discriminatory power. Then, the syntactic context that the discourse marker was placed in by the speakers was analyzed. Most of them indicated a discriminatory power between the speakers.Show less

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Speaker Discriminatory Power of Discourse Markers in Dutch