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
Dutch speakers have differing ways of pronouncing the English loanword . This thesis attempts to research these different pronunciations, through auditory analysis using phonetics, and through...Show moreDutch speakers have differing ways of pronouncing the English loanword . This thesis attempts to research these different pronunciations, through auditory analysis using phonetics, and through formant measurements. Additionally, Dutch speakers’ evaluations of the different phonetic realisations of were researched. 15 Dutch speakers were interviewed, and their ways of pronouncing noted. The results show, among other things, which form of pronunciation of was most used by the participants; the degree of consistency in pronunciation per participant (using a newly-developed technique called the IVS-technique); the formant measurements of the vowels participants used for in ; and the participants’ attitudes towards specific pronunciations of .Show less
This paper investigated discourse on the use of the English language in Dutch pop music. An important term in this research was societal treatment. Societal treatment studies deal with the explicit...Show moreThis paper investigated discourse on the use of the English language in Dutch pop music. An important term in this research was societal treatment. Societal treatment studies deal with the explicit manifestations of beliefs, feelings and behavioural intents present in a wide range of communications (Santello 2015). The questions which were researched in this thesis were: What are the language attitudes of the people of the Netherlands towards Dutch and towards English in pop music? Do they have a language preference? Three methods were used to look at the societal treatment of English and Dutch in pop music: content analysis, indirect measurement, and direct measurement (Van Meurs 2010). In the content analysis, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) was gathered about the use of Dutch and English in pop music from different forums. All this data was categorized into twenty-three different categories. The indirect measurement consists of a questionnaire which focused on the four tendencies which were found in the content analysis. These four tendencies were the connection to the song, the understanding of the song, the thoughts on the lyrics, and the enjoyment of the song. The goal of this questionnaire was to define if there were differences in the treatment of Dutch and English in these tendencies by letting people evaluate different video clips. In all the video clips Dutch artists were present but half of the video clips were sung in Dutch and the other half was sung in English. The direct measurement was the creation of two discussions online which focused on upcoming new Dutch music genres and the language attitudes of the Dutch towards the Dutch language. Overall, the results show that most of the Dutch have a negative language attitude towards their first language and have a language preference for English in pop music.Show less
“Oh shit, [I have] said fuck! Oh fuck, [I have] said shit!” Brian Blessed spoke these words on an episode of Stephen Fry’s show Planet World (Fry, 2011b). Why might some people perceive this...Show more“Oh shit, [I have] said fuck! Oh fuck, [I have] said shit!” Brian Blessed spoke these words on an episode of Stephen Fry’s show Planet World (Fry, 2011b). Why might some people perceive this sentence as shocking, rude or offensive? For the simple reason that it contains swearwords. Swearing is not something one is supposed to do and this is told us in, amongst others, the Bible: “But I say unto you, Swear not at all ; neither by heaven ; for it is God’s throne : / Nor by the earth ; for it is his footstool : neither by Jerusalem ; for it is the city of the great King. / Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black” (The Bible, Mat. 5.34–36). Swearing has always been taboo (Montagu, 1967; Stapleton 289). In one of his comedy routines, the American comedian George Carlin talked about the number of swearwords in the English language compared to the total number of words in it: “There are 400,000 words in the English language, but there are seven of them you cannot say on television. What a ratio that is!” (2011; Pinker, 2008). These seven words are shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. As a reaction to this sketch, the US Supreme Court and the federal government established a law which could regulate speech on broadcast television and radio in the United States (Poetry Genius): if one uttered one of the ‘seven dirty –’ or ‘filthy words’ on television or radio, one had to pay a large fine. The ban has been established about thirty years ago and there is an ongoing debate on whether it should be lifted (Nighty News, 2012). What makes a word an effective swearword? “In order to be useful for the purposes of swearing, a word […] must have reference to an object possessing, or thought to possess, force or power of some kind” (Montagu 15). Many of these words refer to excrement and filth, like shit, or sexual intercourse, like fuck. Not all words can function as swearwords, “because they [lack] the acquired weight of tradition in the speech community” (Hughes, 1992:22). All swearwords are therefore emotionally charged terms (Hughes, 1992). Native speakers of English mainly use English words when they swear. Native speakers of Dutch, however, swear both in their native tongue and in English (van de Krol, 2013). Are people these days really offended when someone utters a “filthy word”? Is the perceived rudeness of swearing dependent on factors such as nationality and gender? Do British people perceive swearwords with a different level of harshness than Americans? How do their results compare to people who are native speakers of Dutch? These are questions which this thesis would like to answer.Show less
This study focuses on the variation in pronunciation of 18 Dutch loanwords. These loanwords know variation in a vowel or consonant, or in their stress pattern. With the help of a questionnaire and...Show moreThis study focuses on the variation in pronunciation of 18 Dutch loanwords. These loanwords know variation in a vowel or consonant, or in their stress pattern. With the help of a questionnaire and wordlist, the varying pronunciation forms of these Dutch loanwords were analysed. By studying the origin of these loanwords, it became evident whether the donor language influenced the pronunciation. It became clear that French is the most influential donor language with regards to the pronunciation. Correlations with sex, age, region, educational level, and dialect proficiency were also studied to find any patterns. The social variables sex and educational level influenced the choices speakers made for a certain pronunciation form the most.Show less
The results of this research show that female participants have more positive attitudes towards English loanwords than male participants. Female participants were consistently more positive...Show moreThe results of this research show that female participants have more positive attitudes towards English loanwords than male participants. Female participants were consistently more positive regarding statements 1, 2 and 3 or, respectively, this is an ordinary Dutch sentence, the use of [loanword] is appropriate in this sentence and I would also make use of this sentence as can be found in Figure 1. Furthermore, there is significant correlation at the 0.05 level between both statement 2 and statement 3 and gender, which means that female participants have scored significantly higher than male participants for these statements. The results of this research also suggest that the mean scores of the participants become consistently lower when age increases for each of the statements. Figure 2 shows that the mean scores for the statements mentioned above consistently decrease when ages of the participants increase. These data suggest that older participants have more negative attitudes towards loanwords than younger participants. In furthermore, there is significant negative correlation at the 0.05 level between the statement I would also make use of this sentence and age. This implies that the attitudes towards using these loanwords are significantly more negative when the ages of the participants increase. This research indicated that most participants do not prefer alternative words to the used loanwords. Table 11 (in section 4.3) indicates that crash is the loanword with the most preferred alternatives as it is preferably replaced by ongeluk and neerstorten, according to nine and ten participants, respectively. Table 11 also indicates that seven participants prefer vraaggesprek to interview, six participants prefer behaald or gepresteerd to gescoord and five participants prefer peiling(en) and voorlopige uitslagen to exit polls. Preferred alternatives to the other loanwords were only provided by four participants or less, and are therefore not widely supported among the participants. In addition, the majority of the loanwords (all except crash) are catachrestic. Furthermore, the results of this research suggest that the participants generally consider that the used loanwords are more precise than other Dutch words. The second favoured reason is that participants consider that the used loanwords sound better regarding pronunciation, which can be found in Table 12.Show less
