Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis consists of two interconnected parts: a synchronic section dealing with Lio phonology, and a diachronic section dealing with the internal relations of the Central Flores language group,...Show moreThis thesis consists of two interconnected parts: a synchronic section dealing with Lio phonology, and a diachronic section dealing with the internal relations of the Central Flores language group, of which Lio is a member. The first section is a description of the phonetics and phonology of Lio (Austronesian), a language spoken in Flores, an island in the Lesser Sunda island chain of eastern Indonesia. I describe the phonemic inventory, phonotactics, stress system and adaptation of loanwords into Lio. This is based on fieldwork carried out in Central Flores in July-August 2017 which focused mainly on Lio. This is a contribution to the state of linguistic documentation in Central Flores, which remains relatively poorly documented. This will also set the stage for the second part of the thesis, because Lio is an important language for reconstructing aspects of Proto-Central Flores. The second section is a historical analysis of the relations of the Central Flores languages, and a reconstruction of Proto-Central Flores. I present evidence that the Central Flores languages form a valid innovation-defined subgroup, which underwent a period of splitting and isolation at the level of Proto-Central Flores. Then I address the internal relations of the Central Flores group and the process of differentiation from Proto-Central Flores to the modern Central Flores languages. Lio is one of the more conservative members of the Central Flores group, and is crucial for distinguishing the reflexes of certain Proto-Central Flores phonemes. The Central Flores group forms a linkage, with patterns of intersecting isoglosses which are not easily captured in a tree diagram. Therefore, the findings of this section will be cast in the framework of Historical Glottometry, a wave model-based methodology which is better equipped to represent and model the relations holding between linkages.Show less
Objectives: This thesis is a replication study of previous work on Spanish-English code-switching (Stadthagen-González, Parafita Couto, Párraga and Damian, 2017) and focuses on comparative...Show moreObjectives: This thesis is a replication study of previous work on Spanish-English code-switching (Stadthagen-González, Parafita Couto, Párraga and Damian, 2017) and focuses on comparative judgments, with regard to adjective-noun order in Papiamento-Dutch code-switched utterances. It examines the predictions of adjective-noun order derived from two different theoretical models: the Minimalist Program (Cantone & MacSwan, 2009) and the Matrix Language Framework (Myers-Scotton, 2002). In Dutch, adjectives are prenominal, like ‘zwarte hond’ (‘black dog’), whereas in Papiamento, adjectives are mostly post-nominal, as in ‘kachó pretu’ (literally: ‘dog black’). The Matrix Language Framework (MLF) posits that the word order in code-switched sentences must follow the word order of the Matrix Language (determined by finite verb morphology) (Myers-Scotton, 2002). However, according to Cantone and MacSwan (2009) within the Minimalist Program (MP), the word order depends on the adjective’s language. Methodology and analysis: To evaluate these predictions, 10 monolingual base sentences were modified into 40 code-switched items, consistent with the MP, the MLF, with both or none of the theoretical models. Data was gathered by a 2-Alternative Forced Choice (2AFC) task, concentrating explicitly on switches in adjective-noun word order and was analysed using Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment (Thurstone, 1927). Conclusions: Results of the thirty-seven bilinguals that participated in this experiment, indicate that both the language of the verb as well as the language of the adjective are used to determine word order in code-switched sentences and these results do not differ much from those of the similar study regarding Spanish-English bilinguals (Stadthagen-González et.al., 2017). Evidence showed that neither of the two theoretical models can fully account for the acceptability of adjective-noun switches. Implications: A suggestion would be to combine the insights of both the Minimalist Program and the Matrix Language Framework to be able to understand grammaticality in code-switching, as already proposed by Stadthagen-González et.al., (2017).Show less
This thesis focuses on gender-assignment strategies in Spanish-English mixed nominal constructions in which nouns come from English and determiners come from Spanish. Spanish has gender-agreement...Show moreThis thesis focuses on gender-assignment strategies in Spanish-English mixed nominal constructions in which nouns come from English and determiners come from Spanish. Spanish has gender-agreement for determiners (el/los/uno/estos for masculine, la/las/una/estas for feminine gender), as well as also other types of agreement, for instance with adjectives. English does not possess gender-agreement in the least. This conflict site where grammars of the two languages have conflicting rules, is therefore interesting to examine. Previous studies report that bilingual speakers use different strategies when assigning gender-agreement in code-switched Determiner Phrases (DPs) where the determiner comes from a gender-carrying language and the noun from a language without gender. Valdés Kroff, in his study (2016) found evidence in favour of the default strategy proposed earlier by Poplack, Pausada & Sankoff (1982). He examined mixed DPs in the Bangor Miami Corpus. He found that Spanish determiners were almost all masculine gendered and used as a default. A second strategy proposed by Liceras et al. (2008) suggests that translation equivalent of the noun will determine the gender of the Spanish determiner in Spanish-English bilingual speech. A third possible strategy, found by Parafita Couto et al. (2016), is that the gender-assignment in Basque-Spanish language pair is determined by a phonological cue. This means that nouns ending on-a, mostly trigger the Spanish feminine la determiner in mixed DPs. The aim of the present study is to determine which of these strategies are mostly used in each community and to look if, and how, these communities differ. The bilingual speech production of 104 participants were examined through a Map Task, across four Spanish-English communities: Pennsylvania State University (PSU) (USA), San Juan, (Puerto Rico, USA), El Paso (Texas, USA) and Granada (Spain)). Results showed, that in bilingual DPs, Spanish masculine determiner occurred more frequently as a default strategy, than the analogical strategy in both San Juan and PSU. Interestingly, in Granada and El Paso, both the default and the translation equivalent strategies are almost equally used. In conclusion, these bilingual communities with the same language pair, have different strategies for gender-assignment in bilingual DPs. As suggested by Valdés Kroff (2016), this can be explained by specific community norms that result in linguistic variation across communities.Show less
A research on the evaluation of Indian English (IE) speech by speakers of Indian English through the analysis of over 1000 Youtube comments. How these evaluations are shaped is investigated through...Show moreA research on the evaluation of Indian English (IE) speech by speakers of Indian English through the analysis of over 1000 Youtube comments. How these evaluations are shaped is investigated through an in-depth examination of the following factors: (1) Historical background of English in South Asia; (2) Current role of English in India; (3) The evolutionary linguistic perspective on group formation and use of language as a marker of group membership; (4) The perception of (presumed) non-native speakers (NNS) by speakers of Englishes that are (phonetically similar to) “global standards”, global ideologies of IE and how that interacts with the perception of IE speech by IE speakers.Show less
As English continues to be the world’s lingua franca, it is important to recognize the pragmatic norms and conventions of the language. Additionally, it is necessary to understand the norms being...Show moreAs English continues to be the world’s lingua franca, it is important to recognize the pragmatic norms and conventions of the language. Additionally, it is necessary to understand the norms being used by non-native speakers and how the differences may affect communication. This research focuses on how requests were produced by native and non-native English speakers. In specific, it analyzed both which strategies were utilized in forming requests as well as how many were used. The data for this research was collected using in an open role-play involving 38 female participants who had various grammatical competence and were of four different nationalities. The participants’ request strategies were analyzed relative to both their grammatical competence and nationality. The first set of analyses found neither grammatical competence or nationality to a reliable predictor for which request strategies were used. A second set of analyses indicated that nation might be a predictor of a speaker’s use of modal modification to a head act.Show less
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) – as far as we know – wrote thirty-seven plays over a time period of twenty-three years (Hoenselaars 2012:xv–xxii), one could wonder if traces of the changing verb...Show moreWilliam Shakespeare (1564–1616) – as far as we know – wrote thirty-seven plays over a time period of twenty-three years (Hoenselaars 2012:xv–xxii), one could wonder if traces of the changing verb-morphology of the Early Modern English Period (1500–1700) should be found in his writing (Crystal 2004:3). One example of this changing verb morphology is that, during this period, the third-person singular present tense inflection -th fell out of general use and the -s inflection became a part of Standard English (Nevalainen 2006:89). This thesis discusses if Shakespeare’s verb morphology represents this morphological shift. To answer this question, this thesis analysed the verb morphology of third-person singular present tense verbs in three of Shakespeare’s plays, more specifically comedies, one from the beginning of his career, one from the middle and one from end, i.e. The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1589–1593) , Twelfth Night (1601–1602) and The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613–1615). This analysis has presented results that prove that the use of the -th inflection by Shakespeare in his plays decreased throughout his career.Show less
Dothraki, one of the fictional languages that features in HBO’s Emmy-award winning TV series Game of Thrones, resembles a natural language in many ways. This thesis is an empirical syntactical...Show moreDothraki, one of the fictional languages that features in HBO’s Emmy-award winning TV series Game of Thrones, resembles a natural language in many ways. This thesis is an empirical syntactical investigation into one of the language’s more idiosyncratic features, namely its double marking of negation. A corpus of 46 negative Dothraki sentences was analysed to determine the position of negation with in a sentence. These results were discussed in reference to a number of theories on the syntax of negation in natural languages. This was done with the ultimate aim of discovering whether negation in Dothraki adheres to the syntactical patterns of natural languages, or whether it is constructed differently and in that way evidence of the language’s artificiality. This thesis ultimately concludes that the double marking of negation in Dothraki can be accounted for by existing theories based on negation in natural languages, arguing that Dothraki resembles languages like Berber in that NegP is the left-most phrase in the split-IP, with the subject in the specifier of TopP.Show less
This thesis examined which pronunciation of the three existing variants of the English swearword fucking, which are FAKKING ([fɑkɪŋ]), FUKKING ([fʏkɪŋ]), or FOKKING ([fɔkɪŋ]), is L1 Dutch speakers’...Show moreThis thesis examined which pronunciation of the three existing variants of the English swearword fucking, which are FAKKING ([fɑkɪŋ]), FUKKING ([fʏkɪŋ]), or FOKKING ([fɔkɪŋ]), is L1 Dutch speakers’ preferred use. In addition to this, this thesis studied which variant is considered most offensive to Dutch speakers. An experiment was conducted in which 50 L1 Dutch speakers were interviewed on these issues. In addition, a smaller second experiment was conducted in which an L1 English speaker was interviewed via email on the offensiveness of the word fucking to a native speaker of English and on their opinion on Dutch speakers using it. The results of the main experiment suggested that the ‘nativeness’ or ‘Dutchness’ of the pronunciation is the main influence on offensiveness ranking, not sound iconicity, which was originally hypothesised to be the main influencing factor.Show less
This thesis examines whether there is a difference in how English swearwords are perceived by Dutch L1 speaking men and women and whether the swearwords are also ranked differently per gender. In...Show moreThis thesis examines whether there is a difference in how English swearwords are perceived by Dutch L1 speaking men and women and whether the swearwords are also ranked differently per gender. In order to collect data to answer the research questions, an online survey was created. The participants were 60 Dutch L1 speakers with a near-native or advanced language proficiency in English. The data was then analyzed with two independent T-tests, a Mann-Whitney test, and a two-way repeated measures ANOVA test in IBM SPSS statistics. The results suggest that gender, as well as swearwords, have an effect on the perceived offensiveness of English swearwords. In general, male participants perceived English swearwords as less offensive than female participants. It was also found that the swearwords were not all perceived as equally offensive. Finally, it was found that the overall scale of offense as well as the scale of offense per gender differed from the native-speakers scale of offense (McEnery, 2006) suggesting that Dutch L1 speakers of English perceive English swearwords differently from native English speakers.Show less
This thesis examines whether the neoclassical intensifiers extra-, hyper-, mega-, super-, and ultra- are in competition, and if so, whether this competition is leaning towards adaptation of the...Show moreThis thesis examines whether the neoclassical intensifiers extra-, hyper-, mega-, super-, and ultra- are in competition, and if so, whether this competition is leaning towards adaptation of the various forms to different uses or towards extinction of one or several forms. In order to collect data to answer the research questions, the Corpus of Contemporary American English was used. For each individual neoclassical intensifier, a random sample of approximately 100 tokens was extracted from the corpus. The data were then analysed for their independency, the category of the base word, whether the intensifiers were used in a positive, negative or neutral context, and their meaning or function, including replaceability. The results suggest that the five neoclassical intensifier do compete, and that this competition is leaning towards adaptation of the various forms on different levels.Show less
In the study of the left periphery, the syntax of exclamatives is often overlooked. Although research on exclamatives exists (You 2014; Villa-García 2015), comparative research, such as that of Ono...Show moreIn the study of the left periphery, the syntax of exclamatives is often overlooked. Although research on exclamatives exists (You 2014; Villa-García 2015), comparative research, such as that of Ono & Lasnik (2006), is still even more sparse. In this paper, the left periphery of English and Spanish exclamatives will be explored. By comparing and contrasting data from the two languages, this thesis seeks to further expand upon our knowledge of the left periphery of exclamatives. Using the split CP hypothesis, first proposed by Rizzi (1997), as a framework, this paper specifically focuses on how complementizers are distributed within the left periphery of the exclamative. It explores the identification of exclamatives using the clause type’s syntactic and semantic properties as defined in Zanuttini & Portner (2003). In addition, this paper establishes that A-bar movement occurs in both English and Spanish exclamatives, while head movement occurs only in the latter. I construct data consisting of wh-exclamatives with various word orders and use native speaker input to determine whether these examples are grammatical. Based on these results I analyse the distribution of the constituents that undergo movement. The paper concludes that the syntactic structure of Spanish exclamatives can allow for topicalization and focalization, whereas that of English exclamatives cannot, and it proposes that the complementizers of English exclamatives are positioned higher than those of Spanish exclamatives without the emphatic particle que.Show less
Elements of English have been infiltrating Dutch casual speech to great extent (Edwards, 2016). Not only loans from English can be found; elements that are not fully accepted into the language, but...Show moreElements of English have been infiltrating Dutch casual speech to great extent (Edwards, 2016). Not only loans from English can be found; elements that are not fully accepted into the language, but that are merely a replacement of English elements for Dutch words, are also present in Dutch. This phenomenon (called code-switching) has been described by various researchers already, such as in Clyne (1987), and more specifically in Dutch by scholars such as Zenner and Geeraerts (2015). However, none of the existing studies have researched the grammatical structure of codeswitching to English in Dutch, or which particular speakers of Dutch are more inclined to use codeswitching. This report investigated whether there are patterns to be found in the use of codeswitching to English by speakers of Dutch; specifically grammatical, semantic and sociolinguistic patterns. The database for this research consisted of a Dutch TV programme called “First Dates” as a primary source for instances of codeswitching, for it contains casual Dutch conversations in an unscripted setting. In total, 421 instances of codeswitching to English were found in the dataset and analysed in terms of length, word category, semantic field, intentionality, creativity and pronunciation. The speakers’ sociolinguistic features, i.e. age, gender, social class and sexual preference, were also included in the analysis. Among other things, the speakers showed a tendency towards short codeswitches in various semantic categories and most of the codeswitches were intentional and uncreative in their structure. Additionally, speakers belonging to youth and gay communities were found to codeswitch very often, whereas social class or gender did not seem to affect the speakers’ codeswitching behaviour. Implications that can be interpreted from the results are the following: the elements of English seem to be integrated into Dutch speech to great extent; generally, unintentional codeswitching may be used to relate to cultural phenomena; and intentional codeswitching is possibly used in a conversational manner. Moreover, socio-pragmatic motivations for codeswitching is likely to involve constructing identity or indexing membership of a cultural subgroup. Hence, these patterns assist in providing a deeper understanding of codeswitching to English, i.e. what kind of tendencies there are on structural, semantic and socio-pragmatic levels, and, more generally, day-to-day language use of speakers of Dutch.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis focuses on the relation between preference and particles. It researches the modal particles 'even', 'maar' and 'misschien', used in informal telephone conversations. I analyse all...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the relation between preference and particles. It researches the modal particles 'even', 'maar' and 'misschien', used in informal telephone conversations. I analyse all occurrences of these particles in a second pair part that answers a question, to be able to see if these mitigating particles are used to mitigate the non-preference, as expected.Show less
The effectiveness of advertising texts largely depends on the way they are written. Torresi’s information-to-persuasion ratio is a way of defining the stylistic traits of advertising texts in terms...Show moreThe effectiveness of advertising texts largely depends on the way they are written. Torresi’s information-to-persuasion ratio is a way of defining the stylistic traits of advertising texts in terms of their informativeness and persuasiveness. This ratio can be used to determine the way an advertising text should be translated, so that the translated advertising text is effective. The purpose of this thesis was to experiment with Torresi’s theory by examining the effects different information-to-persuasion ratios have on readers, and to determine the potential this ratio holds for sales optimisation, using three translations of one English advertising text that have different information-to-persuasion ratios. One translation had the same ratio as the source text, one translation was more informative, and one was more persuasive. The results, gathered through a survey, did not always concur with Torresi’s theory. The results showed that translating texts in a more informative or persuasive manner may have a few benefits. For instance, it may provide readers with a better understanding of the product being sold. In addition, the general information about the product was considered more credible in the informative TT compared to the neutral TT. However, it appeared that changing the ratio may also have several negative effects that override the benefits. For example, it may lengthen the text to such an extent that the reader finds it more difficult to focus on the text. Moreover, the readers of the neutral TT found the product the most relevant for them. Overall, the neutral translation was the most effective translation. In other words, experimenting with the information-to-persuasion ratio did not improve advertising effectiveness in this case, and may therefore hold little to no potential for sales optimisation.Show less
The aim of this thesis is to analyze the procedures applied in regional dialect translation from Japanese to English, and the shift of stereotype traits due to localization. To achieve this, I base...Show moreThe aim of this thesis is to analyze the procedures applied in regional dialect translation from Japanese to English, and the shift of stereotype traits due to localization. To achieve this, I base my research around the notion of yakuwarigo ‘role language’ for stereotypical traits in fictionalised orality (Kinsui, 2003). I focus on a specific southern dialect in Japan known as the Hakata dialect. Usage of this dialect has been popularized in recent popular media, which is why I take the Japanese manga ‘comic book’ called Nisekoi ‘False Love’ (Komi, 2011-2016) as material for my case study. The manga has two existing translations, one by the official publisher VIZ Media (2014-2018), and one by several unofficial translation groups known as scanlators (2011-2016). The case study consists out of two separate comparative analyses. The first analysis is in regards to the translation procedures applied by the different translators of the manga, mainly at what kind of eye dialect was adapted throughout the whole series. The second analysis is in regards to the transference of the stereotypical traits that were present in the original Japanese version to the English versions. This analysis is done through empirical research by means of a survey; one for native and fluent Japanese speakers; one for native and fluent English speakers. Through these comparative analyses, I would like to expand on the notion of regional dialect as role language and the effects of translation thereof.Show less
Most researchers agree that frequency plays a role during the processing or accessing of words. Hay (2001) argues that there is a type of frequency called relative frequency which has an important...Show moreMost researchers agree that frequency plays a role during the processing or accessing of words. Hay (2001) argues that there is a type of frequency called relative frequency which has an important effect on the processing of derived forms through a two-route model of morphological processing. She argues that complex forms with a frequency lower than the frequency of their base forms (e.g. uncommon) are more likely to be perceived as decomposable than a complex form with a higher frequency than the frequency of their base words (e.g. uncanny). She reports the results of an experiment which provides evidence for this view. Since it is reasonable to assume that these relative frequency effects also occur in other languages, I replicated her experiment for Dutch. The results of my experiment suggest that relative frequency effects are observed in the processing of Dutch derived forms.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Many sociolinguistic studies see a difference in the language of men and women. This study explores the differences in gendered language use in the letters written by Marian Evans and those written...Show moreMany sociolinguistic studies see a difference in the language of men and women. This study explores the differences in gendered language use in the letters written by Marian Evans and those written under her better-known male pseudonym, George Eliot. By combining gender theory, social history, and computational linguistics, this study argues that Marian Evans took up a pseudonym and a more masculine writing style to succeed in the male-dominated literary world. Machine learning indeed shows that the letters signed as George Eliot were classified as belonging to a male-writing style.Show less
This paper contains a detailed analysis of the use and non-use of biased language amongst students of the BA English Language & Culture at the Leiden University. To be more precise, it...Show moreThis paper contains a detailed analysis of the use and non-use of biased language amongst students of the BA English Language & Culture at the Leiden University. To be more precise, it discusses the reasoning behind the use and non-use of biased language, as well as the contexts and manners in which they occur alongside the targeted groups of such biased language. There was a general tendency to abstain from using biased language in general with the exception of camaraderie forms among the subjects. Still, the participants reacted very differently to the instances of biased language pertaining to different groups of people, with religion being treated the least careful, and race the most careful.Show less
