This study aimed to gain understanding of the directive behavior of 4- and 5- year-old English-speaking children in child-to-child and child-caretaker interactions. The research analyzed 660...Show moreThis study aimed to gain understanding of the directive behavior of 4- and 5- year-old English-speaking children in child-to-child and child-caretaker interactions. The research analyzed 660 directives extracted from 10 hours of video recordings. The findings showed that the compliance with the directive was influenced by the speaker's familiarity with their surroundings and the degree of directness of the directive. Additionally, children who were more familiar with each other used more indirect directives, while 4-year-olds used more indirect directives than 5-year-olds. A pattern was observed where children phrased their directives differently when speaking to a teacher or to a peer, with directives to teachers being less direct and relying more on the teacher's inference skills.Show less
This thesis examines peace negotiations as a critical discussion, analysing what strategies are used in peace talks and the strategic manoeuvring used in each stage of the argumentative activity...Show moreThis thesis examines peace negotiations as a critical discussion, analysing what strategies are used in peace talks and the strategic manoeuvring used in each stage of the argumentative activity based on the topical potential, audience demands and presentational devices. Following Van Eemeren’s (2010) extended pragma-dialectical theory, the thesis, after establishing the theoretical framework on negotiations as a communicative type, the stages and the participants of a peace negotiation and the peace processes and approaches that are adopted during a peace negotiation, analyses the strategies that are used in each stage of the peace negotiations between the United States and Vietnam, that led to the end of the war in Vietnam and to the signing of a peace agreement between the U.S and Vietnam. The thesis concludes with the identification of strategies used in the U.S and North Vietnam peace talks and a discussion about the degree of success of the strategies used in the U.S and Vietnam peace negotiations that led to the a mutually accepted peace accord.Show less
Objectives/research questions: This thesis looks at Dutch-English determiner-noun code-switches and investigates whether there is a preference for the language of the determiner, whether the...Show moreObjectives/research questions: This thesis looks at Dutch-English determiner-noun code-switches and investigates whether there is a preference for the language of the determiner, whether the position of the switched nominal construction and language dominance affect these preferences; and whether these preferences support the predictions of the Minimalist Program (MP), which predicts that the languages with more phi features provides the determiner, or the Matrix Language Frame Model (MLF), which predicts that the determiner will come from the Matrix Language (ML). This thesis also investigates how grammatical gender assignment is resolved in a code-switch involving a Dutch determiner followed by an English noun, and how language dominance affects this. Methodology: The participants (N = 68, aged between 20 – 77) were split into a Dutch-dominant group, an English-dominant group, and a balanced Dutch-English bilingual group, based on their dominance score, which was calculated from their global language score as measured by the Bilingual Language Profile questionnaire. Participants completed two two-alternative forced-choice acceptability tasks (2AFC); one where they evaluated the acceptability of sentences with code-switches between the determiner and the noun that reflected the predictions of the MP, the MLF, of both, or none. The second task tested which Dutch grammatical gender the participant assigned to an English noun. Data and analysis: Results from the first 2AFC were analysed using Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment, while the results of the second 2AFC task were used to create a frequency distribution of Dutch grammatical gender marking. Results: A general preference for an English determiner followed by a Dutch noun was found, though this preference is influenced by the matrix language of the sentence, the position of the code-switch in the sentence, as well as language dominance of the bilingual. The first task provided evidence supporting both the predictions of the MLF and the MP, as participants preferred a Dutch determiner followed by an English noun in pre-verbal position, which is what the MLF predicts, but participants preferred an English determiner followed by a Dutch noun in post-verbal position, which is what the MP predicts. Results from the second task suggest the common determiner de is preferred for English nouns by all participants, regardless of language dominance and regardless of the grammatical gender of the translation equivalent. Originality: Following Parafita Couto and Stadthagen-González’s methodology (2019), this study is one of the first studies to use the 2AFC acceptability judgment task analysed using Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment to directly contrast the predictions of the MP and MLF, and is the first study to do so while controlling for language dominance. Furthermore, this study investigates a language pair that has yet to be researched extensively, in addition to investigating how grammatical gender assignment is resolved. Implications: Results provide evidence for a default gender assignment strategy, as well as evidence for a difference in code-switching preferences depending on language dominance. Furthermore, the results support Parafita Couto and Stadthagen-González’s (2019) suggestion that a theory that combines both the MLF and MP would be more useful to explain Dutch-English code-switches than either framework separately.Show less
This thesis explores vowel mergers in the South Asian community of East Lancashire and the social factors affecting these realisations. Possible (non-)mergers north/force and face/goat are examined...Show moreThis thesis explores vowel mergers in the South Asian community of East Lancashire and the social factors affecting these realisations. Possible (non-)mergers north/force and face/goat are examined for a total of seven speakers by means of a word list reading, and sociolinguistic interviews with all speakers provided data on social factors such as socioeconomic background, social mobility, and identity. Like Standard British English, there is a merge of the lexical sets north and force, following what has been described as the first force merger. However, face and goat present a non-merger that behaves differently compared to the known northern English standard. Unlike a northern, monophthongised realisation of both vowels, all speakers gravitate towards a more southern, diphthongised realisation of face. Goat, however, remains a monophthong for all within this small dataset. The deviation found in the face lexical set might be explained through the social factor of social mobility, as all speakers express a desire to rise above the lower to working-class environment they have grown up in. At the same time, if the maintenance of monophthongised goat is an indication of loyalty to their identity, an argument can be made for the lacking desire of the younger second-generation British South Asians to give up their distinguishing dialectal features.Show less
Several languages in the world alternate between marked and unmarked objects with respect to different properties of the noun, including animacy and specificity. This phenomenon is called...Show moreSeveral languages in the world alternate between marked and unmarked objects with respect to different properties of the noun, including animacy and specificity. This phenomenon is called differential object marking. In this thesis, I describe the differential object marking system of Cha’palaa, a Barbacoan language spoken in Ecuador, and compare this with the differential object marking systems of the related Barbacoan languages. It can be concluded that in three of the four languages, including Cha’palaa, differential object marking is only governed by specificity. In one language, namely Awa Pit, differential object marking is governed by both animacy and specificity.Show less
The Guaporé-Mamoré language area hosts a large amount of linguistic diversity; however, its history of contact remains understudied. This thesis aims to shed light on the contact patterns in the...Show moreThe Guaporé-Mamoré language area hosts a large amount of linguistic diversity; however, its history of contact remains understudied. This thesis aims to shed light on the contact patterns in the region through a study which compares languages in area with regards to their word stress and phonological tone. For this aim, a sample of 40 languages belonging to the area, plus 9 control languages, was collected which gathered the characteristics of their word stress and tone systems. The results show that languages in the Guaporé-Mamoré area tend to prefer right-bound, fixed stress, although only the languages south-west of the Guaporé river, corresponding to the Mojo-Chiquito culture area, are significantly different from the control languages (p = .003) in this regard. The results thus imply different levels of contact in sub-regions of the proposed area. Further research is needed into the commonalities and differences between languages in the region, as well as documentation of the languages.Show less
This thesis studies the conceptualization of malaria in three cultural traditions: Hamar and Swahili, two indigenous East-African languages, and Western biomedicine. It will demonstrate that ideas...Show moreThis thesis studies the conceptualization of malaria in three cultural traditions: Hamar and Swahili, two indigenous East-African languages, and Western biomedicine. It will demonstrate that ideas on malaria vary significantly between these three cultures: in both Hamar and Swahili, malaria is included in a more general category of febrile illnesses, which becomes clear from the linguistic terms and constructions which are used to express ‘malaria’. In biomedicine, malaria is regarded as a potentially life-threatening disease which requires immediate treatment in hospital. If it progresses into severe or cerebral malaria, patients may show symptoms such as convulsions. This symptom is not related to malaria in many African cultures, but it is instead often categorized in a domain of spiritual illnesses and as such, requires different treatment, according to their traditional indigenous practices. An attempt will be made to clarify the Hamar, Swahili, and biomedical conceptualization of malaria from a linguistic point of view. This is done by investigating how malaria or febrile illness in general as well as related symptoms are expressed in Hamar and Swahili. For the biomedical perspective, it will not only be examined how malaria is conceptualized, but also the way in which traditional indigenous medical knowledge is considered. Moreover, an important aim of this thesis is to make a proposal of how to bring the different views together in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation, in order to contribute to the global malaria struggle.Show less
Trust is an important aspect of daily-life communication. We decide whether to trust someone based on just a face or a voice. Trust is part of credibility and is invariably connected to expertise....Show moreTrust is an important aspect of daily-life communication. We decide whether to trust someone based on just a face or a voice. Trust is part of credibility and is invariably connected to expertise. Previous research on credibility, expertise and trustworthiness has shown the impact of disfluencies on all three aspects. However, it has often focused only on native speech, and never used the duration of empty pauses as a fluency measure. The current study investigated the effect of empty pause manipulations in both native and non-native speech on perceived competency-based trustworthiness in two scenarios, differing in the level of expertise. Recordings of a native and a non-native speaker were manipulated phonetically, which resulted in two conditions: long empty pauses (LongPauses) and no empty pauses (NoPauses). The perceived competency-based trustworthiness of the speakers was measured using a 5-point likert-scale, based on McCroskey’s (1966) authoritativeness scale. Results indicated a significant effect for scenario and an interaction effect between scenario and nativeness. Post-hoc t-tests showed that the native speaker was perceived as significantly less trustworthy than the non-native speaker in the non-expert scenario. Second post-hoc t-tests showed that the native speaker was perceived as significantly more competency-based trustworthy in the expert scenario, than in the non-expert scenario. This same effect was not found for the non-native speaker. Follow-up questions showed that listeners in the native group indicated that the implied expertise in the scenarios did affect their judgements of the speaker, while the listeners in the non-native group indicated it did not.Show less
This thesis aims at filling a gap in the typological analysis of Niger-Congo noun classes and initiate the creation of a framework applicable for every Niger-Congo noun class system. It answers the...Show moreThis thesis aims at filling a gap in the typological analysis of Niger-Congo noun classes and initiate the creation of a framework applicable for every Niger-Congo noun class system. It answers the research question "What are the criteria and challenges to creating a typological framework for Niger-Congo noun classes ?" Based on existing literature, this thesis reviewed the definitions of noun classes and existing frameworks in most of Niger-Congo language families. It also identifies the challenges specific to this type of project and develops an approach to overcome the difficulties by using the resources of technology, typically Excel, to build a database, sufficiently general to take into account all Niger-Congo noun class systems and flexible enough to adapt to all specificities. Such a framework also aims at creating a database in order to create statistical analysis.Show less
The present thesis investigates how West-Frisian expresses low quantities or amounts. The thesis provides evidence in favor of a claim made in Hoekstra, J. (2000) in a reaction to Doetjes (1998)....Show moreThe present thesis investigates how West-Frisian expresses low quantities or amounts. The thesis provides evidence in favor of a claim made in Hoekstra, J. (2000) in a reaction to Doetjes (1998). This claim states that the West-Frisian quantity expression in bytsje ‘a bit’ is compatible with mass nouns as well as count plurals. This is due to an ambiguity inherent to this West-Frisian quantity expression such that it can have a meaning similar to a bit as well as few/little. Similar to counterparts of this quantity expression in related languages such as English, Dutch and German (resp.: a bit, een beetje and ein bisschen), the mass-only restriction applies to West-Frisian in bytsje in its reading similar to a bit as well. In the reading similar to few/little on the other hand, West-Frisian in bytsje does not adhere to the mass-only puzzle as proposed by Doetjes (1998), instead, in bytsje is compatible with count plurals as well as Hoekstra, J. (2000) states. In those cases, as Hoekstra, J. (2000) states and data collected for the present paper shows, the West-Frisian quantity expression in bytsje seems to range from being ambiguous between having a negative and a positive reading and having only a probable negative reading. This compatibility of in bytsje (a bit) with count plurals is hypothesized to be related with the disappearance of the simplex low-degree quantifier min (few/little) in contemporary West-Frisian. Furthermore, through comparing the properties of three distinct West-Frisian quantity expressions (in bytsje ‘a bit’, net folle ‘not many/much’ and in pear ‘a few’) the ambiguities for substituting min for in bytsje are laid bare. Based on these arguments, the present thesis claims that the simplex quantity expression min has been replaced not only by in bytsje and net folle as Hoekstra, J. (2000) proposes, but also by in pear to account for these ambiguities. A language analysis seems to indicate that each quantity expression in West-Frisian has its own distinct role in the quantity system of this language which provides evidence that while in bytsje is compatible with count plurals, this compatibility shows a highly limited distribution.Show less
