This thesis covers a pilot study that examines whether Dutch infants can distinguish lexical tonal patterns in pseudowords. It is inspired by Sato et al.’s 'Development of Hemispheric...Show moreThis thesis covers a pilot study that examines whether Dutch infants can distinguish lexical tonal patterns in pseudowords. It is inspired by Sato et al.’s 'Development of Hemispheric Specialization for Lexical Pitch–Accent in Japanese Infants' (2010). Sato et al. found that Japanese infants can distinguish lexical tonal patterns in Japanese disyllabic words, and that they start processing these stimuli mostly in the left hemisphere (rather than bilaterally) as they get older in their first year of life, suggesting that Japanese infants perceive lexical pitch-accent as a lexical acoustic cue. Since Dutch does not use pitch-accent as a lexical cue, we would not expect Dutch infants to start processing tonal patterns in the left hemisphere as they get older within their first year. The first step to examining this expectation is carrying out a behavioural discrimination task to establish whether Dutch infants can distinguish lexical tonal patterns in pseudowords in the first place. Only then does it become fruitful to carry out a NIRS experiment like Sato et al. to investigate in what parts of the brain Dutch infants process lexical tonal patterns, and whether this differs as they get older. We found that Dutch infants do seem to be able to distinguish lexical tonal patterns in pseudowords. Though the sample size of this pilot is small, the effect that we found is of such significance that we expect to find it in the larger sample size of the official study as well, showing that Dutch infants can distinguish words on the basis of their tonal pattern. We therefore expect that performing a NIRS study like Sato et al. (2010) will be feasible.Show less
The current research project has employed qualitative methods to conduct a language attitude study that gauges the inter-generational perspectives of South Africans about the variety of English...Show moreThe current research project has employed qualitative methods to conduct a language attitude study that gauges the inter-generational perspectives of South Africans about the variety of English spoken in the country and its accents. The objective of this research project is to evaluate how South Africans feel about English, 26 years since the inception of democracy in the country, its role in education, governance and business, and the value they assign to language status. Ten South Africans between the ages of 17 and 65 from the main ethnicities in the country (Black, White, Coloured, Indian, Muslim) have been interviewed according to a semi-structured Interview Protocol. The attitudes of the younger speakers were compared to those that were born in previous generations, before democracy. The phonological properties of the participants’ speech were recorded within the BATH, KIT and GOOSE vowel spaces which have been identified as important social markers in South Africa and the South African English (SAE) sound. The participants pronunciations across the ethnic and social class spectrum were evaluated. The interviews and phonological recordings were conducted according to an elicited communications methodology (computer-mediated) using WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook. The participant attitudes were coded into six categories, i.e. positive, negative, perceptiveness, awareness, overcompensation, political correctness. Their vowel recordings were analysed according to its place of articulation and the presence of fronting. The participants displayed an innate positive attitude toward SAE and its role in stimulating future progress in the country.Show less
