The Pronunciation of the English F-Word by Dutch L2 Speakers (Vowel perception and variation)

Persistent URL of this record https://hdl.handle.net/1887/63643

In Collections

This item can be found in the following collections:

Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)

Eringaard, Charlene (2018)

The Pronunciation of the English F-Word by Dutch L2 Speakers (Vowel perception and variation)

Bachelor thesis | Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)

This thesis examined which pronunciation of the three existing variants of the English swearword fucking, which are FAKKING ([fɑkɪŋ]), FUKKING ([fʏkɪŋ]), or FOKKING ([fɔkɪŋ]), is L1 Dutch speakers’ preferred use. In addition to this, this thesis studied which variant is considered most offensive to Dutch speakers. An experiment was conducted in which 50 L1 Dutch speakers were interviewed on these issues. In addition, a smaller second experiment was conducted in which an L1 English speaker was interviewed via email on the offensiveness of the word fucking to a native speaker of English and on their opinion on Dutch speakers using it. The results of the main experiment suggested that the ‘nativeness’ or ‘Dutchness’ of the pronunciation is the main influence on offensiveness ranking, not sound iconicity, which was originally hypothesised to be the main influencing factor.

swearwords

English swearwords

perceived offensiveness