This thesis builds on the idea that subtle, culturally induced differences in semantic meaning remain between translation equivalent words across different languages. This study further argues that...Show moreThis thesis builds on the idea that subtle, culturally induced differences in semantic meaning remain between translation equivalent words across different languages. This study further argues that these differences in meaning may be approached through the examination of the linguistic contexts within which these words occur. Consequently, this work provides a quantitative methodology for highlighting relevant areas in which such cultural differences may be reflected. The method is based on intuition derived from several existing, structuralist methods and works primarily by comparing the frequency of hypernyms of nouns that appear in the neighborhood of an examined word. This thesis focuses on the indigenous Dolgan language as a case study; one that is purposely exploratory in nature. This minority language poses the research with the additional challenge of working with a small-sized language corpus for computational purposes: it demands a ‘rough’ look at data to act as a means, instead of being a limitation. Overall, the results indicate that culturally determined differences between words exist to a measurable degree, despite the unavailability of an adequately sized dataset. Although the results provide insufficient guidance for drawing anthropological conclusions, the findings reassert that cultural knowledge is encoded within language and reiterate the need to preserve endangered indigenous languages.Show less
In this thesis, the following research question is answered: What is the reliability of Jan Danckaert’s Dutch description of seventeenth-century Muscovy? The methodology used is comparative...Show moreIn this thesis, the following research question is answered: What is the reliability of Jan Danckaert’s Dutch description of seventeenth-century Muscovy? The methodology used is comparative philology, through a close reading analysis a comparison is made between different texts to study whether one makes use of the other as a source. Only a preliminary answer can be given to the research question. On the one hand, since the work is not purely written by Danckaert, but makes use of information given by both Herberstein and Massa without mentioning these sources, it is not reliable as a source of how a Dutchman perceived Muscovy at the beginning of the seventeenth century. On the other hand, if you purely look at the ratio between chapters that are demonstrably copied and those that seem to be purely written by Danckaert, one could conclude that this work written by Danckaert is fairly reliable to see how the Dutch perceived the Russian people at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The negative image of the Russians that is conveyed in this work influences the way the Dutch perceive them, who at that time did not have many different sources on which they could base their opinion.Show less
