This thesis aims at providing a preliminary description of body part terms and their use in Hamar, a language of Ethiopia. Mainly based on elicited data from a native speaker, an overview is given...Show moreThis thesis aims at providing a preliminary description of body part terms and their use in Hamar, a language of Ethiopia. Mainly based on elicited data from a native speaker, an overview is given of body part terms in Hamar. Several lexical and grammatical features of body part terms are discussed. It is explained why a body part partonomy could not be established. Going beyond the human body, animal body part terms and their relation to human body part terms are explored. The way in which Hamar denotes the ‘top’ and the ‘back’ of objects is based on anthropomorphic and zoomorphic models. It is argued that body part mapping in Hamar is mainly due to an analogy in shape/appearance, space/position and function. Hamar uses body part terms to express deictic orientation, similar to other African languages. In doing so, the language interacts with case markers and elevation deictics. Based on the four-stage model of Heine et al. (1991), it is argued that Hamar body parts have only partly been grammaticalized. Locational body part nouns usually appear as BODY PART NOUN-F.OBL-LOCATIONAL CASE MARKER and are part of a genitive construction.Show less
Discourse markers can provide various insights into the thought processes of the speaker producing them. For instance, previous research (see Maschler & Shapiro, 2016; Yeh & Huang, 2016;...Show moreDiscourse markers can provide various insights into the thought processes of the speaker producing them. For instance, previous research (see Maschler & Shapiro, 2016; Yeh & Huang, 2016; Othman, 2010 for markers of certainty; see Jucker, 1993; Urizar & Samuel, 2014 for markers of uncertainty) has demonstrated how specific discourse markers can reflect an epistemic stance of (un)certainty to the statement made. At the same time, certainty can be related to expertise, including the ability to provide more details in certain scenarios or, alternatively, provide only the most concise correct answer to a question (Tenbrink, 2020). We address the relation between the presence of markers of (un)certainty and the level of detail (granularity) in the linguistic data by qualitatively analysing eight think-aloud protocols collected while participants arranged place names from memory on a blank sheet functioning as a map. Because certain areas were more familiar to the participants than others, this scenario led to ample and varied use of discourse markers of (un)certainty. The transcripts were segmented and analysed based on CODA (Cognitive Discourse Analysis; Tenbrink, 2020) principles by means of systematic annotation, identifying qualitative patterns of linguistic features on the basis of relative frequencies and analysis of specific instances. Discourse markers were annotated based on previous literature, whilst keeping in mind that certain markers of certainty (e.g. ‘right’) can also fulfil a role as merely a ‘filler-word’. The level of detail (granularity) within utterances was measured by operationalising precision of placement descriptions in the think-aloud task, as well as taking into account relevant contextual data, which reflected, for instance, how well and/or why the participants knew a certain place. This linguistic data was consequently cross-referenced with an accuracy score calculated on the basis of a grid map of the area involved as compared to the spatial placements by the participants. Results indicate that discourse markers of uncertainty tend to be employed far more often, which corresponds to our expectations for a complex task with a potential for evaluation (face saving acts; Brown & Garland, 1971; Mirzaei Jegarlooei & Allami, 2018). However, despite the high number of instances where discourse markers were used, statistical analysis revealed no significant correlation between the use of discourse markers (neither of certainty nor of uncertainty) and the accuracy scores of the location placements. On the other hand, granularity level did have a significant negative correlation with accuracy scores in our data set (so; the higher the level of granularity, the lower the accuracy score would be). This would indicate that experts tend to provide concise but correct answers, opening up various pathways for further investigation. It must be noted that the corpus employed for this exploratory study was relatively small (N=8), so these results should only be taken as an indication for potential further research rather than conclusive evidence.Show less
I will start by touching on the existing scholarship centering around the language use of the authors in question, from a literary and linguistic point of view. Additionally, I will look at the...Show moreI will start by touching on the existing scholarship centering around the language use of the authors in question, from a literary and linguistic point of view. Additionally, I will look at the previous studies on these authors’ perspective on women, as expressed in their work. Then I will discuss the methodology with which I researched the gendering of the modal verbs used by these authors. Next, using a corpus tool, I will review the resulting collocations, clusters, and concordance lists and analyse these findings in terms of the deontic modality associated with the female characters. Finally, I will try to establish if the male and female authors differ in the type and amount of modal verbs used to represent female characters.Show less
Bilingual education programmes have been increasing in popularity in the Netherlands. These programmes use language integrated learning: a pedagogical principle through which the material is taught...Show moreBilingual education programmes have been increasing in popularity in the Netherlands. These programmes use language integrated learning: a pedagogical principle through which the material is taught in a second language, often English. This thesis focusses on the effects of these programmes on pupils’ motivation to learn and to seek out native input, as well as on the influence these programmes have on students’ L2 phonology. More specifically, it analyses whether pupils are able to pronounce English word-final obstruents properly, both their voiced and voiceless variants. This is something that is particularly challenging, as prior research on the Marked Differential Hypothesis and Optimality Theory showed that voiced obstruents are a marked language feature of English, as well as one that is not present in Dutch. Through a digital questionnaire and a reading task, pupils from bilingual and monolingual streams of the same high school participated in this study. The research found no significant difference in the level of motivation or desire to seek out input between the two groups, but TTO students did use English captions more often when watching English films and series. Error analyses of the reading tasks of three pupils found that the TTO pupil did only devoice word-final fricatives, whereas the VWO pupils devoiced both the stops and the fricatives. Furthermore, other errors, such as applying the Dutch phonological rule of Regressive Voice Assimilation and altering the place of articulation, were only made by VWO pupils. Sending the recordings made by the pupils to native speakers confirmed that the TTO pupil did sound more native than the VWO pupils. However, due to the limited number of analyses, it can only be speculated what general effects bilingual education has on the L2 phonology of a wider variety of pupils.Show less
This thesis is about the expression of ingressive aspect: language elements that focus on the beginning of a situation. The aim is to conduct a fine-grained analysis and comparison of the aspectual...Show moreThis thesis is about the expression of ingressive aspect: language elements that focus on the beginning of a situation. The aim is to conduct a fine-grained analysis and comparison of the aspectual semantics of three ‘manifestations of ingressivity’: the ingressive suffix -qilai起來 in Mandarin and the ingressive adverbs chū初 and shǐ始 from pre-Tang Chinese. The comparison reveals both similarities and differences. First, the three ingressive markers share a basic conceptual structure consisting of [+BEGIN] and [+focusBEGIN], but -qilai 起來 additionally consists of the optional component [±STAND UP] due to limited semantic bleaching of the source structure’s lexical semantics, i.e. the verb qǐlai 起來 ‘to stand up’. This explains the fact that Stage Level States selecting -qilai起來 may shift optionally to Activities, as metaphorical extensions of ‘standing up’ (i.e. ‘increase’) license dynamic interpretations. This same optionality may be explained for the pre-Tang Chinese adverbs through the causative potential of the predicate, which likewise optionally entails ‘increasing’. Second, combinatory possibilities can be described for shǐ始 without additional restrictions, while those of -qilai起來 and chū初 can be accounted for with one disjunctive rule each: -qilal起來 requires the predicate to be durative, atelic, or both; chū初 requires it to be dynamic-durative, telic, or both. In terms of ingressive subtypes, this means that chū初 is typically inceptive, -qilai起來 is more inceptive than inchoative, and shǐ始 is actually ingressive in that inceptive and inchoative interpretations are equally available.Show less
This thesis provides an insight into the workings and uses of Indonesian metaphors in a Malay-speaking area. It is shown that despite not having Indonesian as their native language, most...Show moreThis thesis provides an insight into the workings and uses of Indonesian metaphors in a Malay-speaking area. It is shown that despite not having Indonesian as their native language, most participants were still able to recognise Indonesian metaphors when presented with them in an interview.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
2022-02-01T00:00:00Z
Much of the literature on heritage language phonology finds heritage speakers to show some influence from their dominant language compared to homeland speakers, but heritage speakers still perform...Show moreMuch of the literature on heritage language phonology finds heritage speakers to show some influence from their dominant language compared to homeland speakers, but heritage speakers still perform more accurately in their heritage language than do naïve speakers. Yet, research on heritage language phonology is limited compared to that on heritage language syntax and morphology. This is even more so the case for research on heritage speakers’ suprasegmental phonology: for instance, very little is known about heritage speakers’ perception of lexical tone. The present study used an ABX task to investigate perceptual segment-tone integration in heritage speakers of Vietnamese in the Netherlands, compared to monolingually raised Dutch and Vietnamese speakers in the homeland, respectively. Heritage speakers were found to have a stronger segment-tone integration than the monolingually raised Dutch, whereas the homeland Vietnamese showed a slightly stronger integration than the heritage speakers. Moreover, the groups’ integrations were asymmetrical: heritage speakers considered both tones and segments in word identification but had a clear preference for segments; the Dutch controls almost exclusively considered segments and the Vietnamese controls had a slight preference for tone-based word identification. The findings thus conform to previous literature on heritage language phonology: the heritage speakers performed intermediately between monolinguals of their heritage and dominant languages.Show less
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 study aimed to provide a clearer understanding of the phonetic influence a native speaker of Arabic can experience during the acquisition of English as a second language (ESL), specifically...Show moreThis study aimed to provide a clearer understanding of the phonetic influence a native speaker of Arabic can experience during the acquisition of English as a second language (ESL), specifically for the consonants /p/ and /v/ in spelling and pronunciation. In a small-scale experiment, Arabic speakers of English were asked to translate an Arabic story to English by hand to create an authentic product of their spelling abilities. Afterwards, the same participants read a short story in English, which was recorded with audio equipment to later evaluate their pronunciation through the program PRAAT. Contrary to existing literature, the small-scale experiment conducted for this study found no significant effect for the influence of Arabic on English spelling despite this being hypothesised and proven in previous research. Along with this, no effect was found for the experiment based on the pronunciation of /p/ and /v/. Whereas the results did show that Arabic speakers of English had a Voice Onset Time (VOT) of /p/ that was considerably lower, they did not realise a [b] instead of the target [ph] as hypothesised. Speakers did not significantly devoice their /v/ to an [f], which does not directly coincide with the literature that has hypothesised the influence of native language phonology on the pronunciation of English as a second language. When evaluating the results as a whole, two things are implied: (1) there is a possible focus in ESL learning on spelling and therefore no issues were found, and (2) pronunciation is a difficult aspect of ESL learning due to the unfamiliar articulatory processes involved and Arabic learners experience difficulties when faced with the unfamiliar /p/ and to a lesser degree also /v/. However, they are able to make the distinction between the phoneme pairs. These implications may help ESL learners in the future to focus on problem areas, further improve their skills, while simultaneously providing the research niche of phonology with new material to investigate.Show 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
Pitch accent is an important but undertaught part of the Japanese language. Differing much from the stress accent found in most Indo-European languages, even learners well into the advanced stage...Show morePitch accent is an important but undertaught part of the Japanese language. Differing much from the stress accent found in most Indo-European languages, even learners well into the advanced stage struggle to utter sentences in a fully native-like manner. Therefore, in this thesis, I tackle the issue of What teaching methods are best suited for pitch accent acquisition (PAA) in the long-term for adult foreign learners of Japanese? I discuss several methods for acquiring pitch accent, and directly compare two of them: Practising with audio-visual stimuli and explaining the rules governing pitch accent. I examined 3 groups of foreign Japanese language learners (n=9) and gave each of them a different set of instructions (or no instruction, in case of thecontrolgroup).Inapretest, posttest, anddelayedposttest, theyweremadeto judge the pitch accent pattern of, and reproduce semi-randomly chosen, common Japanese words. The results suggest that explaining the rules is just as viable an option as compared to traditional training, and that textbook producers and teachers should not be afraid to expose students to the details pitch accent, even in the early stages of their learning. Further study is needed to support these conclusions, and explain what causes some students to respond better to one method over the other.Show less
