Despite SF’s general underrepresentation both in academia and the publishing world, there are scholars that have turned to this genre and studied it in relation to Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of...Show moreDespite SF’s general underrepresentation both in academia and the publishing world, there are scholars that have turned to this genre and studied it in relation to Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of foreignization and domestication, introduced in The Translator’s Invisibility (1995). Domestication has been considered “especially problematic due to its inventiveness of fictive worlds and the reliance of its estrangement function upon specific language” (Campbell, 2021, p. 6). One of the ways in which this inventiveness is expressed, is through neologisms, as Freedman (2000) explains, “this device being perhaps the most paradigmatic expression of science-fictional diction” (2000, p. 37). One of the scholars that has discussed neologisms in his work is Peter Newmark (1988), whom we will be discussing in this thesis. Newmark (1988) recognizes in his book, A Textbook of Translation, that translating neologisms is a challenging task, as he emphasizes that “neologisms are perhaps the non-literary and the professional translator’s biggest problem” (p.140). The aim of this thesis is thus to study neologisms within the SF genre in relation to Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignization. It will do so by conducting a case study on a SF text, namely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (DADOES) by American writer Philip K. Dick. In the case study, three Dutch translations of DADOES will be compared to each other and the source text: De Elektrische Nachtmerrie (1969) by Frank Visser, Dromen Androïden van Elektrische Schapen? (1979) by Ivain Rodriguez de León and Blade Runner: Dromen Androïden over Elektrische Schapen? (2017) by Irving Pardoen. The research will focus on chapter three and the neologisms in it. The 26 neologisms were classified using Newmark’s (1988) nine categories of translation procedures, with an additional 10th (proposed category) and 11th category to cover instances of omission. The central research question of this thesis then, is whether the translation choices made by the three translators point to a foreignization or domestication-oriented approach, and which of the three translations can be considered the most domesticated based on the findings. As for the hypothesis, it is speculated that the 1969 and 1979 translations of neologisms will reveal a more domestication-oriented approach, whereas the 2017 text is expected to be more foreignized. In writing this thesis and conducting the case study, I set out to give insight into the potential that SF texts hold for academia and the translation field. Campbell (2021) emphasizes how SF is a “powerful means of communication, not only because it can serve to explore and explain the effect of technological developments, whether native or important, but also and more importantly because it can be a powerful means of social criticism” (p.2.). In a world that is constantly evolving as technology advances at a rapid rate, the subjects discussed in SF are more relevant than ever. Therefore, by studying the “inventiveness” (Freedman, 2000, p.37) of the SF genre in the form of neologisms and in how they are translated, we could learn more about the dynamics and developments in our own world as we speculate about the reasons for these translation choices.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
The aim of this thesis was to determine whether Polish-Dutch bilinguals benefit from knowing a second language when learning to assign stress to English words. Specifically, the research targeted...Show moreThe aim of this thesis was to determine whether Polish-Dutch bilinguals benefit from knowing a second language when learning to assign stress to English words. Specifically, the research targeted children who were learning English in Dutch primary education, aged 10 to 12 years old. Earlier research on second language acquisition shows that because of language transfer, knowing an extra language is beneficial for learning a new language (Bartolotti & Marian 2016, Ellis 2015, Schwartz 2015). To find out if the bilingual children did better or worse in assigning stress to English words than monolingual Dutch children, a survey was carried out as a small pilot study on three participants. Here, the participants had to pronounce fifteen words from a word list. Next, the number of words where the participants had assigned stress correctly or incorrectly were counted and presented in different tables. This showed that although the overall performance of the Polish-Dutch bilingual participant was not better than that of the monolingual Dutch participants, the bilingual participant did significantly better in assigning stress to the English words that receive penultimate stress.Show less
This thesis describes a study in which Dutch learners of English are asked to interpret a set of novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. The complete set of test items is divided into a set...Show moreThis thesis describes a study in which Dutch learners of English are asked to interpret a set of novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. The complete set of test items is divided into a set with compounds designed to encourage participants to select the appropriate semantic relation in the compound, and another set with compounds designed to elicit figurative interpretations. The thesis investigates whether there are significant differences between Dutch ESL learners’ interpretations of Dutch (L1) novel noun-noun compounds and their interpretations of English (L2) compounds. Differences were found for the figurative compounds, but not for the relation-based compounds.Show less
This study aims to clarify the general attitudes of Dutch people towards the usage of anglicisms in Dutch. To this end the function and presence of anglicisms in Dutch are analysed, followed by the...Show moreThis study aims to clarify the general attitudes of Dutch people towards the usage of anglicisms in Dutch. To this end the function and presence of anglicisms in Dutch are analysed, followed by the creation and distribution of a survey that presents ten frequently used anglicisms in Dutch. The results of the survey display an overall neutral stance towards the presence and usage of anglicisms in Dutch, with some interesting outcomes considering the age, education level, and province of origin of the participants.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
“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
