Metaphors are linguistic, rhetorical devices that have the ability to increase effectiveness of the perception by adding comprehensibility and relatability, thus boosting persuasion. Strategic...Show moreMetaphors are linguistic, rhetorical devices that have the ability to increase effectiveness of the perception by adding comprehensibility and relatability, thus boosting persuasion. Strategic manoeuvring by means of metaphor in political speeches is quite common, yet, only little awareness exists on the subject, especially in the political realm, which is why it is crucial to increase knowledge on this subject. The general purpose of this study is to increase knowledge of the strategic use of metaphors of US Republican and Democratic presidents’ inaugural speeches in the past 20 years, employing Critical Discourse Analysis to address how the strategic use of metaphors compares between the (first) inaugural addresses of President G.W. Bush, President Obama, President Trump, and President Biden, and how these metaphors function. The metaphors in the speeches were identified using existing literature and Lakoff’s Master Metaphor List (1991). Findings revealed that all four presidents’ most frequent conceptual metaphors were the journey, object, building, and war metaphors, which may be explained by both their high rate of conventionalisation and their exceptional rhetorical properties. Furthermore, the Democratic presidents used more different types of metaphors than the Republican presidents did. The Democratic and Republican Presidents used roughly the same number of metaphors relative to their speeches’ word counts. A follow-up analysis may help gain insights on whether voters’ perceptions of presidents are influenced by the inaugural addresses and the role of metaphors and other rhetorical tools in the political genre.Show less
In this research the English proficiency of two groups of students who attended the same secondary school in the Netherlands are compared. The first group of students followed a monolingual pre...Show moreIn this research the English proficiency of two groups of students who attended the same secondary school in the Netherlands are compared. The first group of students followed a monolingual pre-university programme, while the other group attended a bilingual preuniversity stream. After an explanation about the differences between these two programmes and an exploration of earlier research into pronunciation and vocabulary acquisition, this study examined what the differences/similarities were between these two groups in terms of oral proficiency after five years of secondary education. Twenty students, ten of each programme, were asked to complete two tasks. For the first task they were asked to read out a text, and afterwards their pronunciation of pre-selected vowels and consonants was analyzed with the speech analysis program Praat. The second task required the students to first describe a painting by Breughel in their own words and then to describe five specific scenes on the painting. The results showed that there were slight differences between the oral proficiencies of monolingual and bilingual students and that both groups of students had not acquired a set of characteristics that all of them adhered to in terms of vowel and consonant pronunciation. A lot of variation existed between the two groups, even though the agreement was stronger in the bilingual group. When comparing both groups’ lexicon quantitatively, the bilingual group clearly expressed themselves more extensively in their second language than the monolingual group, but qualitatively speaking the bilingual students did not appear to be familiar with more lower-frequency words than the monolingual students.Show less
In this thesis I present articulatory processes to challenge the restrictive grammar of Element Theory. Backley’s work presents the many advantages of this new grammar and its implementations in...Show moreIn this thesis I present articulatory processes to challenge the restrictive grammar of Element Theory. Backley’s work presents the many advantages of this new grammar and its implementations in phonological analyses. However; ET’s purely acoustic origins reflects signs of substantial restriction when the grammar is utilized to describe purely articulatory processes such as nasal place assimilation. In some cases a possible solution can be presented in the segmental structure where in other cases the theory as represented in Backley (2011) just reasons to be too restrictive.Show less
This thesis examines to what extent the long midvowels [eː], [oː], and [øː] are diphthongised in L1 Dutch and whether phonetic transfer of these diphthongisation patterns from L1 Dutch to L2 German...Show moreThis thesis examines to what extent the long midvowels [eː], [oː], and [øː] are diphthongised in L1 Dutch and whether phonetic transfer of these diphthongisation patterns from L1 Dutch to L2 German occurs. In order to collect data to answer the research questions, two recorded scripts, one in L1 Dutch and one in L2 German, from 29 participants between 18 and 25 years old are analysed. The script involves 15 words, five per phoneme, in both languages. These phonemes are measured for their vowel duration and the corresponding formant values for F1 and F2 at 25% and 75% of the vowel duration. In doing so, figures are constructed signifying a line of diphthongisation for each phoneme. Additionally, the data are analysed per word and per participant, and are compared to the average results of all participants together. The results suggest that the phonemes [eː], [oː], and [øː] are diphthongised in L1 Dutch and that phonetic transfer occurs as predicted by Flege’s (1988, 1990, 1991, 2007) Speech Learning Model.Show less
This thesis investigates the relationship between vocabulary and grammar learning aptitude (measured by two LLAMA subtests) and accuracy constituents in adult L2 speakers’ oral and written...Show moreThis thesis investigates the relationship between vocabulary and grammar learning aptitude (measured by two LLAMA subtests) and accuracy constituents in adult L2 speakers’ oral and written discourse productions. It also examines the relationship between the speaking and writing attainment, and the extent to which the link between performance in aptitude and speaking differs from the one for writing. Oral and written picture narratives elicited from 30 ESL speakers were analyzed and coded in terms of lexical and morphosyntactic errors per 100 words. The results of the Spearman correlation analyses revealed that vocabulary learning aptitude is significantly associated with the command of lexis and morphosyntax in writing, explicit grammar learning aptitude shows no significant association with accuracy in both production modes, and time availability in writing has no influence on the interplay between explicit and implicit knowledge with regard to the access of lexical forms. No significant differences were found with respect to the strength of aptitude-speaking and aptitude-writing relations.Show less
This thesis studies the lexical items in youth language, henceforth Straattaal, currently used by Dutch youths in the city of Almere, in order to identify possible developments in Straattaal...Show moreThis thesis studies the lexical items in youth language, henceforth Straattaal, currently used by Dutch youths in the city of Almere, in order to identify possible developments in Straattaal lexicon 20 years after Appel’s (1999) first analysis of Straattaal words, which was conducted in Amsterdam. The investigation is directed at finding out to what extent the lexicon of Straattaal has changed, and what this change may possibly tell us about the dynamics of language. Previous research that has been done on Straattaal has for the most part focused on the perceptions and attitudes towards Straattaal and its social significance. The scope of this thesis is focused on testing students’ knowledge of Straattaal, and comparing the Straattaal words currently used by youngsters aged between 16 and 30 who live in Almere to those collected and analyzed in the studies performed some twenty years ago by Appel (1999), Appel & Schoonen (2005), and Nortier (2001). The aim of this investigation was to find out whether Straattaal is indeed, as Nortier (2001) notes, subject to continuous change. In order to gather data for this study, an online survey was conducted among 150 students, between the ages of 16 and 30, of an intermediate vocational school in the city of Almere. The survey consisted of a list of 50 words, identified as Straattaal words compiled for earlier studies. The survey first addressed the issue of the contemporaneity of Apple’s list of most commonly used Straattaal words from 1999, including the list that was compiled in Appel & Schoonen’s 2005 study and the list compiled by Nortier in 2001. Participants were asked if they could identify the words in the list as being Straattaal words, if they knew their meaning, and if they used the words themselves. The data showed that Straattaal is quite prevalent. 58% of respondents claimed to use Straattaal regularly. With regard to the extent to which Straattaal has evolved over the past 20 years, no considerable changes were found.Show less
In the US, it seems that the Right is associated with bad or incorrect language use. The Left, on the other hand, seems to be associated with prescribing language. According to Chapman (2012), in...Show moreIn the US, it seems that the Right is associated with bad or incorrect language use. The Left, on the other hand, seems to be associated with prescribing language. According to Chapman (2012), in the UK, Conservatives are often associated with prescriptivism because they are “bound up with issues of tradition and control” (p. 128). After creating a corpus of American and British English Facebook comments, I analysed the comments written by people who are anti-Trump, pro-Trump, anti-Brexit and pro-Brexit and found that overall the pro-Brexit and Trump group are more inclined to make linguistic mistakes and use non-standard English, whereas the anti-Trump and Brexit group is more likely to write prescriptive comments.Show less
This Perceptual Dialectology study of three dialects spoken in the South of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands (Roosendaals, Oudenbosch, and Ruchpens) explored to what degree people from these towns...Show moreThis Perceptual Dialectology study of three dialects spoken in the South of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands (Roosendaals, Oudenbosch, and Ruchpens) explored to what degree people from these towns are aware of the dialect features that make up their dialect, what these dialect features are and if these people are aware of the differences and similarities between their own dialect and that of the other two towns. The participants were thirty dialect speakers who are born, raised and still residential in one of the three studied towns. Interviews were held with these participants in which they were asked about their views on and knowledge about their own dialect and that of the two other towns. From these interviews it has become clear that, although Roosendaals, Oudenbosch and Rucphens have similarities, they do differ from each other on a lexical and a phonetic level. Most importantly, the results suggest that one’s level of sociophonetic awareness of their dialect relates to what degree they are capable of speaking Standard Dutch.Show less
The present study explored the attitudes of secondary school teachers and non-teachers towards different degrees of Dutch-accented English and whether there was a difference in attitudes between...Show moreThe present study explored the attitudes of secondary school teachers and non-teachers towards different degrees of Dutch-accented English and whether there was a difference in attitudes between these groups. In addition to this, it investigated whether there were certain pronunciation features that would lead to a lower grade. This was tested through an online survey consisting of two parts, namely a listening task and an open-ended question. The listening task asked the participants to grade a total of twelve recordings on a scale from 1 to 10 and to motivate their answer as to why they gave a certain grade. The recordings consisted of two native speakers and ten speakers with different degrees of Dutch accentedness. The degree of accentedness was determined by three people who had listened to the recordings beforehand and these recordings were then categorized into three different groups based on the degree of accentedness. These three groups consisted of (1) native speakers/light Dutch-accented English, (2) medium-Dutch accented English, and (3) heavy Dutch-accented English. The survey ended with an open-ended question which asked the participants wat they thought was the most important aspect to be taught when teaching a foreign language. The results showed that teachers graded most of the recordings (77.8%) higher than the non-teachers, though there was only a small difference. Furthermore, the results showed that both the teachers’ and non-teachers’ grades were lower for the medium- and heavy-accented Dutch Englishes than they were for the native speakers/lightly-accented Dutch Englishes. When asked why a certain grade was given, however, pronunciation only came up 25.8% of the time in the teachers’ answers and only 16.4% of the time in the non-teachers’ answers. A similar pattern was found in the open-ended question, where pronunciation as an important aspect of language learning came up 21.4% of the time in the teachers’ answers and 26.8% in the non-teachers’ answers.Show less
In second language (L2) research and in some types of L2 testing, measures of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) are widely applied both to capture performance of language learners as well as...Show moreIn second language (L2) research and in some types of L2 testing, measures of complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) are widely applied both to capture performance of language learners as well as to assess L2 learners’ proficiency underlying their performance. In spite of the long research interest in CAF, many questions are still raised, including a significant question as to what extent L2 CAF measures are correct indicators of L2 proficiency. A speaking-oriented study by De Jong et al. (2015) indicates that measures of L1 and L2 fluency are strongly correlated and therefore concluded that there was a large overlap for many aspect of fluency. This study aimed to examine L2 complexity, accuracy and fluency measures and compared them to L1 behavior. Furthermore, the current study also considered whether such correlations are stronger for high-proficient L2 Speakers. Spontaneous speech of 10 native speakers of Armenian and 19 native speakers of Arabic with L2 Dutch is recorded and analyzed with regard to complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Analysis revealed that measures of Complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in L1 do not significantly correlate with the equivalent measures in L2. The findings would support the threshold hypothesis (LTH), indicating that some threshold of proficiency needs to be attained in L2 before L1 skills can be transferred in the L2.Show less
Climate change is a scientific discipline that received extensive attention from both specialists and general public. This puts additional pressure on scientific writers in this domain to use...Show moreClimate change is a scientific discipline that received extensive attention from both specialists and general public. This puts additional pressure on scientific writers in this domain to use language means successfully to render their ideas to such a wide readership. Manty studies have researched the use of rhetorical moves and metaphors in scientific writing, but never in climate change writing and never in interrelation. This thesis, therefore, aims at bridging this gap and studies rhetorical moves, metaphors and the ways they may be interrelated in abstracts of climate change research articles in high-impact journals Science Advances and Nature Climate Change. It has been found that many abstracts in the data favor the Introduction-Purpose-Product-Conclusion structure, and overall the Product move is obligatory for all abstracts. However, Science data showed more variation both in the use of moves and in the usage of metaphors. The results of this study could be a starting point for a more in-depth research in the area, as well as of use to those studying scientific discourse for academic or practical reasons.Show less
This thesis investigates whether the demise of the cardinal posture verbs (CPVs): sit, stand, and lie, in Modern English can be ascribed to the rise of the [be +V-ing] construction. Using the data...Show moreThis thesis investigates whether the demise of the cardinal posture verbs (CPVs): sit, stand, and lie, in Modern English can be ascribed to the rise of the [be +V-ing] construction. Using the data from the Penn Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English and the Penn Parsed Corpus of Modern British English, together comprising a period from 1500 to 1914, the frequency with which the CPVs occur have been found to nearly half in size whereas the frequency of the [be + V-ing] construction increases by more than a tenfold. There is a strong negative relationship between these constructions ( = -0.733) but not significant (p < 0.055). However, the combined coefficient of the three CPVs cumulated improves compared to the correlation coefficient of each of the CPVs individually (r = 0.13 for sit, r = -0.67 for stand, and r = -0.64 for lie). A definite semantic clash between the CPVs and the [be +V-ing] construction has been found unlikely. Instead, competition within the functional-semantic domain of ongoingness in Modern English potentially lead to a period of attraction between these two construction types and possibly more, e.g. be busy and keep V-ing. Moreover, the English language became unbounded due to a larger change in the English aspectual system (Los, 2012). The other Germanic languages are bounded languages which use the CPVs richly but have no progressive that is equivalent to the [be +V-ing] construction. The typological switch in English may have, therefore, influenced the halted grammaticalisation of the CPVs and the thriving grammaticalisation of the [be +V-ing] construction and alike constructions.Show less
Computer-Mediated-Communication is bereft of any intonation markers usually found in face-to-face conversations. As a result, how a sender meant to send out a message versus how their addressee...Show moreComputer-Mediated-Communication is bereft of any intonation markers usually found in face-to-face conversations. As a result, how a sender meant to send out a message versus how their addressee reads it sometimes differ. This can lead to uncooperative and confusing online communication. This paper set out to examine if (and what) effects different punctuation types have on the interpretation of meaning in WhatsApp communication, and whether one’s age or native language influences the perception of these markers. The punctuation types were the exclamation mark, ellipsis, periods, and no punctuation. Unlike previous studies conducted on this topic which focussed only on students, this study was conducted among 123 respondents from a wide variety of ages and countries. Through an online survey, participants were asked for their opinions and thoughts to different types of punctuation used in recurring but otherwise identical messages. Results indicated that different punctuation types elicit strong and differing views, based on what punctuation type is used, and that these types influence their feelings towards the message as well as to the personal state of their interlocutor. The most significant findings were found for ellipsis points and messages lacking any punctuation: ellipses can lead to very negative interpretations in respondents, and a lack of punctuation can lead to respondents feeling sidelined. Interpretations of certain punctuation types are influenced by a reader’s age and native language. Using Yus’ theory of a phatic internet and cyber literacy, this paper posits that the reason respondents assign these meanings to different types of punctuation is to avoid misunderstandings, form identities, and stay on good terms with people in a world in which most daily conversation happens online.Show less
Verbal irony has been a topic of study for several decades and conclusive answers to what it is and how language users correctly understand each other’s ironic expressions are difficult to provide....Show moreVerbal irony has been a topic of study for several decades and conclusive answers to what it is and how language users correctly understand each other’s ironic expressions are difficult to provide. Saying the opposite of what you actually mean does not seem the most effective way of communicating at first sight, but it has proven to be used over and over again without much misunderstanding. Several theories have been proposed in the past few decades that try to explain the concept of verbal irony (among others Grice 1975; Wilson & Sperber 1992; Giora 1997; Tobin & Israel 2012). Most theories on verbal irony share the idea that irony is best defined as an utterance with a literal evaluation that is implicitly opposite to its intended evaluation (Burgers & Van Mulken 2013: 184). According to Giora and others (see for example Giora, Drucker & Fein 2014), constructions (form-meaning pairs) can even be interpreted ironically by default, when the interpretation that springs to mind first is the ironic interpretation, whether presented in isolation or in a context biasing towards that ironic interpretation. This claim is based solely on experimental research with constructed examples (among others Giora et al. 2015; Giora, Givoni & Fein 2015; Giora et al. 2018). However, to support the claim of default ironic interpretation actual language data should be involved, but such corpus studies on ironic constructions are rare. This study builds on two previous studies investigating Dutch ironic constructions on Twitter (Walles 2016; Stevens 2018), and it extends the scope to ironic constructions in English. By comparing three corpora each containing 2,000 tweets with one of the three hashtags #irony, #not, and #sarcasm with a corpus containing 15,000 general English tweets, 30 words and 22 phrases appeared to occur significantly more often in the ironic tweets. These words and phrases were used to compile a new corpus, containing one hundred tweets for each word or phrase. An analysis of the tweets showed that only four were used ironically significantly more often, namely 'classy', 'I’m shocked', 'what a surprise', and 'yeah right'. Exploring the ironic meaning of these four constructions from a constructionist point of view is fruitful, since their ironic meaning can be better understood as these constructions are considered as one unit to which the ironic meaning is assigned. These constructions underwent subjectification: its ironic evaluation has become part of the conventional meaning of the construction and the usage of the construction is expanded to a wider range of communicative contexts in which it conveys an ironic attitude (Verhagen 2000). This gradual conventionalization of the ironic evaluation explains why certain constructions are used more frequently with an ironic intent than others: those constructions have progressed further in the conventionalization process and the ironic meaning has become more closely attached to the construction (Claridge 2011). Nevertheless, the four ironic constructions in the Twitter corpus could not be classified as default ironic constructions, as there are still cases in which they are used literally. The notion of default ironic interpretation is problematic, as the analysis of actual language data do not support the view that one particular construction is always and only used ironically.Show less
This study aims to gain an insight into the similarities and differences in the acquisition of foreign language morphology in secondary school learners with different native languages. To this aim,...Show moreThis study aims to gain an insight into the similarities and differences in the acquisition of foreign language morphology in secondary school learners with different native languages. To this aim, the linguistic behavior of English and Dutch students was examined in the context of the overgeneralization phenomenon and the dual-mechanism theory. The groups were asked to conjugate both existing and non-existing nouns and verbs in one or two of their foreign languages. The results show that overgeneralization plays a major role in the foreign language acquisition of both groups, particularly in irregular conjugation. However, with more target language experience, these errors dissipated, confirming a prediction based on the dual-mechanism theory. Moreover, the results show that the language learning environment had a major influence on the students’ perception of foreign language learning strategies, which in turn affected their language use and behavior. The responses of the English students, who learned Dutch in a predominantly naturalistic learning environment, demonstrated spontaneous and intuitive language use. This contrasts with the responses of the Dutch students, who learned English in an institutional environment and showed forced, rule-based language use. These results are supported by findings in German, in which the Dutch students showed similar language behavior to English, despite the close genetic relationship between German and Dutch.Show less
The analysis of translation poses a number of challenges, ranging from establishing what constitutes ‘good’ translation to assessing how felicitous a particular phrase is in a given context. When...Show moreThe analysis of translation poses a number of challenges, ranging from establishing what constitutes ‘good’ translation to assessing how felicitous a particular phrase is in a given context. When this context is politics, and the translations analysed are political speeches, there are even more factors to be considered. This paper analyses political speeches made in English or Polish as well as their written translations in the other language. The data gathered for the purpose of this paper is a set of six texts, three speeches and their translations. This paper uses a multi-layered model of discourse analysis to investigate a number of specific categories related to the layers of knowledge, agents and the text itself. The paper finds that one of the speeches was created with the explicit aim to be translated into English, while the other two are mainly focused on the audience that speaks the language of the source text. Overall, the results of this paper suggest that comparing the linguistic aspects of a speech and its translation can reveal potentially useful characteristic such as the intended target audience, culturally-significant items or names whose full meaning is particularly difficult to render in another language. The implications of this paper indicate that a similar analysis performed on a much larger scale could provide findings that are more generalisable.Show less
The aim of this study was to analyse the use of metaphor in judicial decisions from a criminal-law and a tort-law perspective, and discuss differences between these two law areas as well as between...Show moreThe aim of this study was to analyse the use of metaphor in judicial decisions from a criminal-law and a tort-law perspective, and discuss differences between these two law areas as well as between the Dutch and the English rulings. This paper only took into account judicial decisions formulated by the Dutch Hoge Raad (the Dutch Supreme Court) and the English Supreme Court. This is because it is at this level that the use of metaphor promised to be the most interesting, as these courts deal with abstraction and are able to use language and content more freely than lower courts. The function and perspective of tort and criminal law, the role of the judiciary, and the justification of decisions are all factors that determine how metaphors are used in judicial decisions. Many different circumstances allow for the use of different metaphors: there is the unlawful behaviour itself; there are people involved that have to judge this behaviour, people involved that assist those that performed the behaviour etcetera; all conditioning the use of metaphor. The legal culture determines the metaphors we live by. This paper will aim to provide an answer to the following two research questions: 1. Does the difference in function and perspective between tort and criminal law give rise to a difference in metaphor use between the two law areas, and also in the key source domains used? 2. Does a difference in the role of the judiciary and the justification of decisions between the Dutch and the English Supreme Court become apparent in language, thus showing a difference in metaphor use between the Dutch and English rulings?Show less
This study examines L2 learners’ ability to distinguish category boundaries in two languages that differ in their semantic categorization and range of application. L1 Spanish speakers of L2 English...Show moreThis study examines L2 learners’ ability to distinguish category boundaries in two languages that differ in their semantic categorization and range of application. L1 Spanish speakers of L2 English were tested for their categorization of items in both languages. Participants were divided into three groups according to their English proficiency level. The data reveals that although high proficiency in an L2 correlates to less evidence of L1 influence in semantic processing, L2 learners are still influenced by the L1 even at high levels of proficiency. Moreover, the results suggest that L2 learners’ semantic system might be based on that of the L1 and that L2 words could be mediated by L1 meanings.Show less
This dissertation discusses French language policy from an ‘ecology of language’ perspective. By adopting a broad definition of language policy and applying Spolsky’s (2004, 2005) forces of...Show moreThis dissertation discusses French language policy from an ‘ecology of language’ perspective. By adopting a broad definition of language policy and applying Spolsky’s (2004, 2005) forces of language policy, consisting of (1) sociolinguistic situation, (2) national identity, (3) globalisation and the spread of English, and (4) interest in linguistic pluralism, to the case of France, it is argued that instead of approaching this case of language policy as a highly successful example of French standardisation, it is more attentive to the linguistic diversity of France to regard it as a case of languages loss, or even a case of systematic ‘linguicide’.Show less
