Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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The reality in many cities across the world today is one of multilingualism (Kraus & Grin, 2018; Smakman & Heinrich, 2018). Municipalities need to deal with this linguistic superdiversity...Show moreThe reality in many cities across the world today is one of multilingualism (Kraus & Grin, 2018; Smakman & Heinrich, 2018). Municipalities need to deal with this linguistic superdiversity to be able to communicate with their citizens and to navigate inhabitants’ linguistic needs (Blommaert & Rampton, 2001; Kraus & Grin, 2018; Skrandies, 2016). There is a relative lack of research into municipal language policy, while it can have a profound impact on citizens’ lives and sociolinguistic identities (Backhaus, 2012; Siiner, 2014; Skrandies, 2016). The Hague, as the third largest city in The Netherlands, is a prime, but understudied example of such a multilingual reality and associated municipal language policy and politics (Tieken-Boon van Ostade, 2019). Moreover, allegedly, The Hague is the most segregated city in The Netherlands (Cornips et al., 2018), which makes issues of language policy, politics, and practice all the more prominent and interesting to investigate. Therefore, I examined two research questions: what are the language policy and politics regarding multilingualism in The Hague and how are these reflected in practice in municipal signage? The analysis takes a sociolinguistic and language policy perspective to answer these questions and is threefold: it consists of a Corpus Analysis of the language policy and politics of the current municipal council, a Critical Discourse Analysis of two language policy documents, and a Linguistic Landscape analysis of municipal signs in the city. The results of all three analyses indicate that the municipality focuses mostly on the acquisition and use of Dutch and generally describes multilingualism negatively, instead of as a resource. More specifically, the multilingualism of citizens who are already disadvantaged is viewed as an obstacle, while the multilingualism of so-called expats and internationals is embraced. This points to a social divide in The Hague based on socioeconomic class, language, and ethnic background, and is indicative of language ideologies about nationalism and economics (Skrandies, 2016).Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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Many sociolinguistic studies see a difference in the language of men and women. This study explores the differences in gendered language use in the letters written by Marian Evans and those written...Show moreMany sociolinguistic studies see a difference in the language of men and women. This study explores the differences in gendered language use in the letters written by Marian Evans and those written under her better-known male pseudonym, George Eliot. By combining gender theory, social history, and computational linguistics, this study argues that Marian Evans took up a pseudonym and a more masculine writing style to succeed in the male-dominated literary world. Machine learning indeed shows that the letters signed as George Eliot were classified as belonging to a male-writing style.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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Dutch grammar prescriptions decree that in subject position, the subject pronoun 'zij' and not the oblique 'hun' should be used. Consequently, the following sentence can only exemplify proper...Show moreDutch grammar prescriptions decree that in subject position, the subject pronoun 'zij' and not the oblique 'hun' should be used. Consequently, the following sentence can only exemplify proper written and spoken Dutch if 'zij' is selected: *Hun/Zij hebben dat gedaan! ("Them/They did that!"). Scholars have revealed that university students disapprove of *hun in a spoken Dutch story (Janssen 2004), and that the more highly educated a group of speakers is, the lower that group’s self-reported use of *hun is likely to be (Bennis & Hinskens 2014). Yet, it remains unclear whether and, if so, how different educational groups perceive 'hun hebben' as well as other 'taalergernissen' (“language annoyances”, or “usage problems”) in spoken Dutch. My sociolinguistic study into 45 young Dutch females’ perception and evaluation of five usage problems in spoken Dutch confirms that speakers’ education is a relevant social variable that future studies about related topics should consider. The speakers with a WO degree (“university degree”) more often commented on the non-standard features in a radio listening task than speakers with HBO (“higher vocational education”) or MBO (“intermediate vocational education”) degrees did. Additionally, the university graduates also were less tolerant of, and more strongly distanced themselves from, spoken sentences that included such non-standard features as compared to the HBO and MBO graduates.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis focuses on the proficiency in the English language of Hendrik Albert Schultens (1749–1793), a third-generation Dutch scholar in oriental languages of Leiden University who travelled to...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the proficiency in the English language of Hendrik Albert Schultens (1749–1793), a third-generation Dutch scholar in oriental languages of Leiden University who travelled to England in 1772 for scholarly purposes. I reconstructed Schultens's social network and investigated his proficiency in English on two points: his use and non-use of the auxiliary 'do' and his use of participial -ing clauses. The thesis contains an edition of thirty-eight eighteenth-century English letters, both received from Schultens's British acquaintances and sent by Schultens himself, the whole of which was transcribed to serve as the corpus of my thesis. I also reflected on the potential reason for Schultens to be interested in learning the English language when, in eighteenth-century Europe, French and Latin were still the two major languages in international contacts. I believe it to be due to the fact that there were so few scholars working in the field of oriental languages and that he wished to exchange information on an international level. In search of potential peers, he was not only prepared to look overseas, but also to immerse himself into the study of his peers’ language and culture for a better exchange of knowledge. When it comes to Schultens's English, he proved to have obtained the level of a near native when he left England. A remarkable achievement after only nine months. Of course he might have studied the English already in the Netherlands, potentially individually. From his first letter on he mastered the use op auxiliary 'do', despite the fact that a similar periphrastic construction does not exist in Dutch. On the other hand, his first two English letters contain errors in his use of participial -ing, or to be more exact: in his use of 'being'. In Dutch 'zijnde' (the Dutch equivalent of 'being') may be used in subordinate clauses to reduce relative clauses (i.e. to make sentences shorter). In English this type of usage of 'being' does not exist. In his first two letters, Schultens still had to figure this difference out. However, by staying long enough in the country of the goal language and leading an active social life among native speakers of English he evidently managed to get a grip on its right usage after all.Show less
