In this thesis, we present an experiment designed to examine the interpretation of scalar implicatures in Greek. Scalar implicatures appear to examples like “I ate some of the pasta.” This sentence...Show moreIn this thesis, we present an experiment designed to examine the interpretation of scalar implicatures in Greek. Scalar implicatures appear to examples like “I ate some of the pasta.” This sentence implies that the speaker uses the term “some” because s/he had reasons not to use the stronger word “all” in the sentence, e.g. “I didn’t eat all of the pasta.” Recent studies of experimental pragmatics suggest that the inference “I ate some (but not all) of the pasta” would not exist in face-saving acts (Bonnefon, J.-F., Feeney, A. & G. Villejoubert (2009). By contrast, Terkourafi and Weissman claim that face-boosting contexts favor lower-bound interpretations. We conducted an experiment addressing this issue, by testing a group of 40 adults (all native speakers of Greek) on four different scalar terms, , , , . Overall, our results indicate that Boost story Version favors lower bound interpretation and are consistent with Terkourafi and Weissman’s conclusions and opposite to Bonnefon’s and colleagues’ hypothesisShow less
This dissertation aims to analyse the discourse strategies and functions of humour and swearing used among a group of Dutch-speaking young adults who are playing videogames. It focusses mainly on...Show moreThis dissertation aims to analyse the discourse strategies and functions of humour and swearing used among a group of Dutch-speaking young adults who are playing videogames. It focusses mainly on identifying which strategies and functions humour and swearing serve, and the frequency of these in both winning and losing discourse (discourse during moments of winning and losing in-game). It also looks at the overall relationship between humour and swearing. The dissertation presents data in the form of audio and video recordings of seven male and six female young adults who play five different video games in the same physical space. After establishing several strategies and functions of humour and swearing based on those presented by Hay (2010), a qualitative analysis of the data revealed not only additional functions and strategies that had not yet been proposed, but also patterns regarding the frequency of certain strategies and functions. The results suggest that humour and swearing have a special function during winning and losing discourse. Additionally, swearing and humour are applied for different goals; whereas swearing mainly serves a psychological function and is used as a way of dealing with losing face, humour is mainly applied to create or maintain solidarity among the players of the game. Regarding the relationship between humour and swearing, it was found that swearing was applied to enhance humour in several cases. Hay, J. (2010). Functions of humour in the conversations of men and women. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(6), 709-742. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00069-7Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis sets out to explore relationships between attitudes to language learning and context as influential factors on the production, and perceived offensiveness and acceptability of L2...Show moreThis thesis sets out to explore relationships between attitudes to language learning and context as influential factors on the production, and perceived offensiveness and acceptability of L2 English swearwords. Using a sample of 111 L1 Dutch, L2 secondary school learners of English, this study uses a three-part approach to further understand L2 English swearing behaviour. The participants first completed a production task. In this task they replied to six hypothetical text- messages following a DCT approach that were manipulated on speaker (authoritative/non- authoritative). Following this, they completed an attitudes task consisting of 24 stimuli to be able to shed further light on attitudes to L2 English learning and swearing as possible influential variable on L2 swearing behaviour. Lastly, based on previous studies by Dewaele (2004, 2016, 2017) and Jay & Janschewitz (2008), the participants completed a perception task in which they rated the perceived offensiveness and acceptability of four swearwords in 4 different contexts. These contexts were manipulated on speaker (authoritative/non-authoritative) and location (formal/informal). For the production task, the findings suggest that participants are more likely to use swearwords in a closed-DCT design. Further, an effect of speaker is found as significantly more swearwords were used when the participants were in conversation with a friend rather than a parent. Swearing, however, occurred rather infrequently, which is partly explained by the negative attitudes of the participants to the use of swearwords. Continuing, the results of the perception task revealed significant effects of speaker (p = 0.001) and location (p = 0.005) on offensiveness ratings, and a significant effect of speaker on acceptability ratings (p = 0.001). Further, a strong negative correlation was revealed between offensiveness and acceptability. Lastly, a comparison between the ratings of offensiveness by the participants and native speaker scales of offence (Millwood-Hargrave, 2000; McEnery, 2006; OFCOM, 2016) show that the non-native participants significantly rate offensiveness lower than native speakers. These results re-affirm findings by other researchers such as Dewaele (2004, 2016, 2017) and Jay & Janschewitz (2008), and indicate that ratings of acceptability are largely dependent on ratings of offensiveness.Show less
