This study explores the meaning of five game related words and whether there is semantic variation within the lexicon of the gaming community. Even though there are tens of thousands of video games...Show moreThis study explores the meaning of five game related words and whether there is semantic variation within the lexicon of the gaming community. Even though there are tens of thousands of video games on the market (Statista, 2022a) and around three billion gamers worldwide (Newzoo, 2021), little research has been done concerning gamers’ linguistics. This research includes an analysis based on a worldwide online survey about the meaning of five gaming terms. 379 respondents gave answers about their age, gender, country of origin and their most played games, as well as their description of five given gaming terms. The respondents were sorted into four categories, or Gamer Types, based on the game genre they play the most. The correlation between the Gamer Types and their descriptions of the five gaming words was analysed. The results of this research suggest that there is semantic variation within the gaming community. However, the results also imply there is no immediate correlation between the Gamer Types and their descriptions of the given gaming terms.Show less
Violence in the media has become increasingly more common, and the way people cope with being exposed to such violence varies wildly due to different socio-economic circumstances. One such...Show moreViolence in the media has become increasingly more common, and the way people cope with being exposed to such violence varies wildly due to different socio-economic circumstances. One such circumstance is age, where people who grew up in different times will react differently to the violence displayed. This study aims to clarify the differences in reactions from different generations by taking a survey, asking each participant to watch three video fragments of a videogame, a blockbuster film, and a documentary. Through the use of language will be determined that there are in fact, differences between the different generations.Show less
This study analyzes the swearing practices of men and women using the reality television gameshow Wie is de Mol? ‘Who is the Mole?’ (WIDM) as a corpus for natural spoken language. The aim of the...Show moreThis study analyzes the swearing practices of men and women using the reality television gameshow Wie is de Mol? ‘Who is the Mole?’ (WIDM) as a corpus for natural spoken language. The aim of the study was to determine whether (1) there was a difference in the swearing practices of the male and female candidates, (2) if the situational context has an effect on these swearing practices, and (3) if these swearing practices have changed over the past decade (from 2011 to 2021). Additionally, this study hopes to contribute to the complex postmodern identity theory. The uttered swearwords during the WIDM episodes were then categorized according to gender, several characteristics of the swearword, and the situational context in which the swearword occurred. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in the overall swearing practices of the male and female candidates and that these practices have not changed over the past decade. However, an effect was found that the swearing rate increases in emotionally charged situations. Furthermore, four candidates’ swearing practices were individually analyzed and indicated that (1) the swearing practices were idiosyncratic, and (2) the fact that they swore more than the average candidate can be linked to their social identity.Show less
The aim of this case study is to perform a multifaceted examination of L2 communication accommodation, investigating a single speaker’s syntactical, lexical and pronunciational choices, in order to...Show moreThe aim of this case study is to perform a multifaceted examination of L2 communication accommodation, investigating a single speaker’s syntactical, lexical and pronunciational choices, in order to better understand how Howard Giles’ Communication Accommodation Theory might be used to examine and explain copying behaviour in nonnative speech. The speaker at the centre of the case study is a Dutch learner of English, and she is observed in conversation with three different interlocutors: one British (interlocutor A), one Dutch (interlocutor B) and one American (interlocutor C). Among the results were three notable shifts in the speaker’s speech behaviour; two were related to pronunciation and concerned her realisation of certain vowels and the postvocalic /r/, the final one was a shift in register or choice of words. There were no instances of accommodation found in the other examined variables. This shows how for an individual, there may be some areas of speech in which communication accommodation will occur more rapidly than in others.Show less
This BA-thesis sets out to explore the differences between native and non-native listeners regarding the impact of accentedness as well as the differences between native and non-native listeners...Show moreThis BA-thesis sets out to explore the differences between native and non-native listeners regarding the impact of accentedness as well as the differences between native and non-native listeners regarding comprehensibility and speaker evaluation. This BA-thesis investigates this through a smallscale experiment where 5 native and 5 non-native listeners evaluate recordings with different degrees of accentedness. This BA-thesis ended with the notion that both the native and non-native listeners prefer a native accent. However, the non-native listeners also showed a preference for a non-native with whom they shared the mother tongue. In addition to this, the non-native listeners were able to condone the non-native speakers for any mistakes if the speakers were perceived to be making an effort in adjusting to the language.Show less
It has been said to write what you know and literature has made use of this fact in no uncertain terms. Especially the film industry, and within that the romantic comedy genre, tell stories of...Show moreIt has been said to write what you know and literature has made use of this fact in no uncertain terms. Especially the film industry, and within that the romantic comedy genre, tell stories of everyday lives. Girl meets boy, they fall in love, they have a fight, they make up, they get together or get married and we laugh, or die of embarrassment at the impossible situations they get themselves into. These are scenes we all know too well. Romantic comedies have been a part of not only our modern culture but they also date back to at least the early modern English periods where Shakespeare entertained the masses. In our modern film culture, romantic comedies seem to be all the rage. Hollywood is popping out one after the other and they seem to have great success all over the world. Due to the fact that romantic comedies make use of a great amount of stereotyping (Neale & Krutnik, 1990), they make interesting cases for gender specific sociolinguist analysis. And that is what I intend to research: Language and gender in dialogue between head male and head female characters in romantic comedies. And also due to the developments that have occurred during the feminist and post feminist periods, I will compare some language features from 1960’s romantic comedies to the early 2000’s. The research will be based on a theoretical background in gender-specific sociolinguistics given by Lakoff (1995), Spender (1989), and Meyerhoff (2006). I will also consult film theoretic literature on romantic comedies given by Neale and Krutnik (1990) and Thompson and Bordwell (2010) to place my research in context. The research data will consist of evidence and examples from fifteen 1960’s romantic comedies, and fifteen of their early 2000’s counterparts.Show less
