In scientific literature, noise and noise annoyance are almost inseparable. While different environmental noise sources can cause various responses, the most common reaction to noise is irritation....Show moreIn scientific literature, noise and noise annoyance are almost inseparable. While different environmental noise sources can cause various responses, the most common reaction to noise is irritation. Several studies have focused on one aspect of noise annoyance, such as attitudes or health. However, a comprehensive picture of factors contributing to noise annoyance is not drafted yet, so this study aims to fill that gap. The study was conducted remotely for ten consecutive days in the daily life of 32 participants. It consisted of two main tasks: (1) wearing an activity tracker and (2) submitting flyover events into the NLR study app. We hypothesised that healthy coping mechanisms would predict lower reported noise annoyance and that predictors of higher reported noise annoyance are more negative attitudes, prevalent unhealthy coping habits, perceived louder and higher-pitched flyovers, and perceived lengthier flyover events. The main questionnaires analysed in this study to test the hypotheses were the ICBEN 11-point scale, BriefCOPE and the attitude component from the NORAH study. Attitudes and coping mechanisms are not verified as predictors in this study. The results do imply that subjective volume, subjective pitch, and subjective duration of a flyover event are good predictors of reported noise annoyance. Further research is needed to explore how subjective volume, pitch, and exposure duration as intervention targets can help reduce aircraft noise disruptions in individuals that live in affected areas.Show less
The Netherlands is a country with a subtitling tradition. This tradition would suggest that Dutch viewers generally have a more positive attitude towards Dutch subtitling compared to Dutch dubbing....Show moreThe Netherlands is a country with a subtitling tradition. This tradition would suggest that Dutch viewers generally have a more positive attitude towards Dutch subtitling compared to Dutch dubbing. However, this subtitling tradition does not seem to have been established at the hand of the attitudes of Dutch viewers towards both modes, considering these attitudes have received nearly no coverage in academic work. This is problematic, since a lack of data on these attitudes makes it challenging for translators of audiovisual media to create translations that are suitable for a Dutch audience. Therefore, this thesis collected data on the attitudes of 53 Dutch participants towards Dutch subtitling and dubbing in the Netherlands through an online questionnaire. The results show that the participants prefer Dutch subtitles over Dutch dubs, but also rate the overall quality of both modes in a similar manner and even list slightly more disadvantages for Dutch subtitles than Dutch dubs. There also appears to be a consensus amongst the participants that children are the main target audience for Dutch dubs, and most participants indicated that Dutch dubs are the most suitable for children’s programs, cartoons and commercials. Furthermore, 69.8% of the participants believe that there is a negative stigma surrounding Dutch dubs and 88.7% of the participants stated that they do not desire for more audiovisual media to become available with Dutch dubs. Additionally, 49.1% of the participants indicated they do not desire for more audiovisual media to become available with Dutch subtitles either. Although 56.6% of the participants indicated they do not feel restricted by Dutch subtitles, the majority of the participants stated that they frequently disagree with the translation choices in Dutch subtitles. Finally, 66% of the participants indicated that they prefer English subtitles over Dutch subtitles. While these findings only represent the attitudes of 53 Dutch viewers, they can form a starting point for future research regarding attitudes towards both modes in the Netherlands.Show less
This study lies within the field of sociolinguistics and explores language attitudes. The goal is to investigate the attitudes of Greek native speakers toward Roman-alphabeted Greek (also known as...Show moreThis study lies within the field of sociolinguistics and explores language attitudes. The goal is to investigate the attitudes of Greek native speakers toward Roman-alphabeted Greek (also known as Greeklish) in Digitally-Mediated Communication (DMC), and more precisely in emails and SMS messages. In order to answer the research question, a modified Matched Guise Technique was applied to visual (text) rather than aural (sound) data. Emails and SMS messages in three different spellings, namely in using the Greek alphabet and two types of Romanized transliteration, phonetic and orthographic, were shown to a total number of 60 participants who were asked to evaluate the authors on a number of traits. Subsequently, using a questionnaire survey, participants’ attitudes were elicited more directly in order to reach more generalisable findings with regards to their perceptions of Greeklish. The findings showed that nowadays, not only has the use of Roman-alphabeted Greek in emails and SMS exchanges been diminished compared with 20 years ago, but Greek native speakers have adopted predominantly negative attitudes toward this linguistic phenomenon as well.Show less
In this thesis the dialect attitudes towards the Kyoto dialect are studied. A list of stereotypical characteristics of the dialect, seen from the perspective of the Tokyo standard is provided,...Show moreIn this thesis the dialect attitudes towards the Kyoto dialect are studied. A list of stereotypical characteristics of the dialect, seen from the perspective of the Tokyo standard is provided, according to which the results of the study are evaluated. A survey on Japanese native speakers is used, which mainly confirmed the validity of the stereotype of the Kyoto dialect.Show less
This thesis studies the social and linguistic attitudes of native speakers (NS) towards second language learners’ (L2L) of their own tongue. Firstly, it will explore British, American, Chinese and...Show moreThis thesis studies the social and linguistic attitudes of native speakers (NS) towards second language learners’ (L2L) of their own tongue. Firstly, it will explore British, American, Chinese and Japanese NS’ social acceptance of L2L and whether L2L may be accepted as new NS. Secondly, it will relate which linguistic requirements NS find of more salience in L2L’ speech. The conducted experiment partly supported the proposed hypothesis. Regarding social acceptance, the results indicated that the ‘Western’ participants were more socially accepting of foreigners and would be more likely to welcome L2L as new NS than the ‘Eastern’ NS. However, in case of the language requirements the results did not support the hypothesis as the ‘Western’ participants also rated being capable of general communication as the most salient language requirement for L2L. For both the ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ participants acquiring a perfect accent was the least important linguistic goal for L2L. Ultimately, the outcomes of this research may not be regarded as truly reflecting ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ views on social acceptance and language requirements of L2L as the sample of this research was unfortunately not considerable. Also, attitudes regarding social acceptance may undergo rapid change due to personal experiences and moods. Therefore, this study may be regarded as a guideline for further research since a study on a much larger scale may truly reflect upon social acceptance of L2L and language requirements NS set for L2L.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
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
