Bachelor thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (BSc)
closed access
This thesis examines how activism, based on the development of the Rights of Nature movement, influences the relationship between Dutch people and the North Sea as a food source. It investigates...Show moreThis thesis examines how activism, based on the development of the Rights of Nature movement, influences the relationship between Dutch people and the North Sea as a food source. It investigates the effects of the Rights of Nature on the sea’s utilization and the responses of Dutch people to the development of the Rights of Nature for the North Sea. It highlights the need for a shift toward more sustainable practices and a new balance between ecological preservation and socio-economic considerations, contributing to understanding the dynamics between the Dutch people and the North Sea in the framework of the Rights of Nature.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2025-07-31
2025-07-31T00:00:00Z
While multiple models of language production exist, it remains difficult to find conclusive evidence for one or the other model. The present study is one of the first to incorporate both behavioral...Show moreWhile multiple models of language production exist, it remains difficult to find conclusive evidence for one or the other model. The present study is one of the first to incorporate both behavioral data and EEG data in a native Dutch noun phrase production task to investigate the processing of grammatical gender. We used a picture-word interference paradigm in which speakers had to name a picture while being distracted by a superimposed word. The distractors were manipulated for grammatical gender congruency with and semantic relatedness to the picture names. In separate blocks, participants had to produce either bare nouns, or determiner noun constructions. We found a robust effect of the semantic relatedness effect in the behavioral data, in which targets belonging to the same semantic category as the distractor were named significantly later than unrelated targets. The EEG data on the semantic relatedness effect were less clear, possibly due to opposing ERP components in (partly) overlapping time windows. More importantly, we replicated the gender congruency effect in reaction times, showing that naming latencies were longer for gender-incongruent trials than for congruent trials. This behavioral effect disappeared in bare noun naming. The EEG data showed similar results, in which a more positive peak was found between 385-585 milliseconds for incongruent than for congruent trials, again only in the determiner noun block. The result seems to indicate a P300 effect rather than the expected enhanced N400, suggesting higher conflict resolution processes for incongruent trials. The absence of the gender effect in bare noun naming in both data types suggests that grammatical gender is not automatically accessed or selected in Dutch noun (phrase) production. This in turn has implications for speech production models.Show less
Despite SF’s general underrepresentation both in academia and the publishing world, there are scholars that have turned to this genre and studied it in relation to Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of...Show moreDespite SF’s general underrepresentation both in academia and the publishing world, there are scholars that have turned to this genre and studied it in relation to Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of foreignization and domestication, introduced in The Translator’s Invisibility (1995). Domestication has been considered “especially problematic due to its inventiveness of fictive worlds and the reliance of its estrangement function upon specific language” (Campbell, 2021, p. 6). One of the ways in which this inventiveness is expressed, is through neologisms, as Freedman (2000) explains, “this device being perhaps the most paradigmatic expression of science-fictional diction” (2000, p. 37). One of the scholars that has discussed neologisms in his work is Peter Newmark (1988), whom we will be discussing in this thesis. Newmark (1988) recognizes in his book, A Textbook of Translation, that translating neologisms is a challenging task, as he emphasizes that “neologisms are perhaps the non-literary and the professional translator’s biggest problem” (p.140). The aim of this thesis is thus to study neologisms within the SF genre in relation to Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignization. It will do so by conducting a case study on a SF text, namely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (DADOES) by American writer Philip K. Dick. In the case study, three Dutch translations of DADOES will be compared to each other and the source text: De Elektrische Nachtmerrie (1969) by Frank Visser, Dromen Androïden van Elektrische Schapen? (1979) by Ivain Rodriguez de León and Blade Runner: Dromen Androïden over Elektrische Schapen? (2017) by Irving Pardoen. The research will focus on chapter three and the neologisms in it. The 26 neologisms were classified using Newmark’s (1988) nine categories of translation procedures, with an additional 10th (proposed category) and 11th category to cover instances of omission. The central research question of this thesis then, is whether the translation choices made by the three translators point to a foreignization or domestication-oriented approach, and which of the three translations can be considered the most domesticated based on the findings. As for the hypothesis, it is speculated that the 1969 and 1979 translations of neologisms will reveal a more domestication-oriented approach, whereas the 2017 text is expected to be more foreignized. In writing this thesis and conducting the case study, I set out to give insight into the potential that SF texts hold for academia and the translation field. Campbell (2021) emphasizes how SF is a “powerful means of communication, not only because it can serve to explore and explain the effect of technological developments, whether native or important, but also and more importantly because it can be a powerful means of social criticism” (p.2.). In a world that is constantly evolving as technology advances at a rapid rate, the subjects discussed in SF are more relevant than ever. Therefore, by studying the “inventiveness” (Freedman, 2000, p.37) of the SF genre in the form of neologisms and in how they are translated, we could learn more about the dynamics and developments in our own world as we speculate about the reasons for these translation choices.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
2022-08-31T00:00:00Z
Research has shown that code-switching (CS) is morpho-syntactically constrained (e.g. Poplack, 1980; Myers-Scotton, 1993; MacSwan, 1999; Lipski, 2019). The fact that phonology and syntax interface...Show moreResearch has shown that code-switching (CS) is morpho-syntactically constrained (e.g. Poplack, 1980; Myers-Scotton, 1993; MacSwan, 1999; Lipski, 2019). The fact that phonology and syntax interface in bilingual performance (Bullock, 2009) has been largely neglected in CS research. It is likely that the interface between prosody and morphosyntax, and not merely morphosyntax alone, may play a role in constraining CS. However, the phonetic and phonological reflexes of CS remain relatively unexplored. This thesis aims to improve our understanding of prosodic constraints on CS by examining the speech from a Papiamento- Dutch conversation corpus (Gullberg, Indefrey & Muysken, 2004; 2009). This language pair is eminently suitable for a prosodic analysis because Papiamento has a tonal system with two level tones that interacts with lexical stress, and Dutch a different lexical system: with stress, without tone. I examined whether stress constrains CS in the nominal domain (Akinremi, 2016), and whether Papiamento tone constrains Dutch insertions (Zheng, 1997; Tuc, 2003). Furthermore, I examined whether speech rate in bilingual vs. unilingual utterances differ to add to the research on speech planning in CS (Johns & Steuck, 2021). My findings are that the stress of switched nouns does not constrain CS, but the stress of adjacent words might; Dutch insertions occur mostly in a context where the prosodic systems of Papiamento and Dutch coincide; and speech rate in bilingual vs. unilingual utterances does not significantly differ. I conclude that congruency in prosody facilitates CS and that CS does not inhibit speech planning. Taken together, my findings are compatible with the view that CS may be an opportunistic strategy that bilinguals use to aid speech planning as prosody in both languages openly contributes to production (Beatty-Martinez, Navarro-Torres & Dussias, 2020).Show less
English and Farsi are languages that maintain a plosive voicing contrast in word-final position, unlike Dutch, a language that neutralizes this contrast in word-final position, while maintaining it...Show moreEnglish and Farsi are languages that maintain a plosive voicing contrast in word-final position, unlike Dutch, a language that neutralizes this contrast in word-final position, while maintaining it in word-initial and word-medial position. With the use of an online questionnaire, I wanted to find out whether native speakers of Farsi are better at categorizing the English word-final plosive voicing contrast than native speakers of Dutch, because native speakers of Farsi have native-language experience with the same contrast in the same position. The results show that both the Dutch and the Farsi group were relatively successful in distinguishing this contrast, but the Farsi group categorized it significantly better. The results of the Dutch group are in line with previous literature that indicate that perception of an L2-contrast is supported by native-language experience with the same contrast in other positions. Additionally, the results of the Farsi group imply that perception of an L2-contrast becomes even better when there is native-language experience with the same contrast in the same position.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
In Dutch, one can order a drink, denoted by a mass noun, using phrases such as: Ik will graag twee (glazen) rode wijn, "I would like two glasses of red wine". Interestingly, the usage of the...Show moreIn Dutch, one can order a drink, denoted by a mass noun, using phrases such as: Ik will graag twee (glazen) rode wijn, "I would like two glasses of red wine". Interestingly, the usage of the classifier, in this case glazen ‘glasses’, is not obligatory. Borer (2005) argues that such sentences, without classifiers, are possible in a register she calls Restaurantese. This construction, however, is not possible with all adjective-noun combinations. Therefore, this study proposes two main hypotheses, similar to van Erkel (2020). First, one could argue that the acceptability of these configurations depends on the syntactic classification of the adjective. Second, one could argue that it depends on the relation between the adjective and the noun, which I refer to with the term combinability. There are different approaches one could take to define combinability. This study takes three different approaches: the collocation of the adjective and the noun; the familiarity of the combination; the chance one could find a combination on a menu, which I call the Restaurantese reading. Through different surveys, this study has shown that the syntactic level of the adjectives does not influence the acceptability of sentences in which you order drinks in Dutch. The combinability of the adjective-noun pair, on the other hand, plays a large role in the acceptability. This effect is, remarkably, not restricted to Restaurantese expressions. By comparing adjective-noun pairs that were ranking differently amongst the three approaches for combinability, I show that the Restaurantese reading is the best indicator for the acceptability of different adjective-noun pairs. Then I discuss the connection between the sentences with and without the overt classifier. I argue that the configurations without the overt classifier contain a covert classifier that introduces countability and the portion needed to express such sentences. Lastly, I note that the acceptability of these configurations is not set in stone. It is hugely dependent on cultural history and the usage of language by all its language users on the one hand, and one’s personal background and world knowledge on the other hand.Show less
The aim of this case study is to perform a multifaceted examination of L2 communication accommodation, investigating a single speaker’s syntactical, lexical and pronunciational choices, in order to...Show moreThe aim of this case study is to perform a multifaceted examination of L2 communication accommodation, investigating a single speaker’s syntactical, lexical and pronunciational choices, in order to better understand how Howard Giles’ Communication Accommodation Theory might be used to examine and explain copying behaviour in nonnative speech. The speaker at the centre of the case study is a Dutch learner of English, and she is observed in conversation with three different interlocutors: one British (interlocutor A), one Dutch (interlocutor B) and one American (interlocutor C). Among the results were three notable shifts in the speaker’s speech behaviour; two were related to pronunciation and concerned her realisation of certain vowels and the postvocalic /r/, the final one was a shift in register or choice of words. There were no instances of accommodation found in the other examined variables. This shows how for an individual, there may be some areas of speech in which communication accommodation will occur more rapidly than in others.Show less
Dutch speakers have difficulty distinguishing such Russian sounds as /tj/ and /tjj/, or /tj/ and /tʃ/. The Perceptual Assimilation Model stipulates that we analyse sounds in a second language in...Show moreDutch speakers have difficulty distinguishing such Russian sounds as /tj/ and /tjj/, or /tj/ and /tʃ/. The Perceptual Assimilation Model stipulates that we analyse sounds in a second language in terms of those from the first based on articulatory similarities. It predicts that if two sounds in a speaker’s second language are analysed as the same sound in the first, they will be difficult to distinguish. Proposing that Dutch speakers analyse Russian /tj/, /tʃ/, and /tjj/ as Dutch [tʃ], I used an AXB-task to systematically investigate Dutch speakers’ ability to distinguish the Russian sounds /t/ and /d/, the coronals /t/, /tj/, /tʃ/, and /tjj/, and the sibilants /ʃ/ and /ʃj/. Since stress affects the vowel quality of the vowel following plain and palatalised consonants differently, I also investigated the effect of stress. Last, participants indicated how easy it was to distinguish the contrast. Analyses revealed that the Dutch participants performed worse than the Russian speakers on /tj/-/tʃ/, /tj/-/tʃ/, /tʃ/-/tjj/, and /ʃ/-/ʃj/, while still having an accuracy of well above .50. Initial stress was only found to negatively influence discrimination of /tj/-/tjj/. The Russian speakers also performed worse on the /tj/-/tjj/ contrast, meaning results on this contrast are to be interpreted with caution. These results show that, while Dutch speakers experience difficulty with perceptually distinguishing sounds not available in Dutch, this difficulty is attenuated. This is important, because it confirms that Dutch learners of Russian should focus on these sounds, while at the same time suggesting that they already have a good head start.Show less
The aim of this thesis was to determine whether Polish-Dutch bilinguals benefit from knowing a second language when learning to assign stress to English words. Specifically, the research targeted...Show moreThe aim of this thesis was to determine whether Polish-Dutch bilinguals benefit from knowing a second language when learning to assign stress to English words. Specifically, the research targeted children who were learning English in Dutch primary education, aged 10 to 12 years old. Earlier research on second language acquisition shows that because of language transfer, knowing an extra language is beneficial for learning a new language (Bartolotti & Marian 2016, Ellis 2015, Schwartz 2015). To find out if the bilingual children did better or worse in assigning stress to English words than monolingual Dutch children, a survey was carried out as a small pilot study on three participants. Here, the participants had to pronounce fifteen words from a word list. Next, the number of words where the participants had assigned stress correctly or incorrectly were counted and presented in different tables. This showed that although the overall performance of the Polish-Dutch bilingual participant was not better than that of the monolingual Dutch participants, the bilingual participant did significantly better in assigning stress to the English words that receive penultimate stress.Show less
This thesis compares the functions of discourse sentence-final particles in Dutch and Japanese. Focusing specifically on Dutch he and hoor and Japanese yo and ne, the thesis clarifies the overlap...Show moreThis thesis compares the functions of discourse sentence-final particles in Dutch and Japanese. Focusing specifically on Dutch he and hoor and Japanese yo and ne, the thesis clarifies the overlap and the diversion in their meaning based on questionnaires participated by native Dutch and Japanese speakers.Show less
This paper investigates how well adult Spanish-Dutch bilinguals have acquired grammatical gender agreement in Dutch and whether individual speakers apply specific strategies to resolve difficulties...Show moreThis paper investigates how well adult Spanish-Dutch bilinguals have acquired grammatical gender agreement in Dutch and whether individual speakers apply specific strategies to resolve difficulties associated with gender in Dutch. Both Spanish and Dutch have two-fold gender systems: Spanish differentiates between a feminine and a masculine gender; and Dutch distinguishes between a common and a neuter gender. In Spanish each gender is marked on the determiner and the adjective with a distinct morphological marker (e.g. the indefinite articles un – amasc and una - afem). In Dutch the indefinite article converges into one form for both genders (i.e. een) and the rules of adjectival agreement are less straightforward than the rules in Spanish. To examine how adult bilinguals handle the opaque Dutch gender system, data from four late Spanish-Dutch bilinguals (L1 Spanish, L2 Dutch), seven early Spanish-Dutch bilinguals and six monolingual Dutch speakers were collected by means of elicited production and analyzed for grammatical gender agreement on definite determiners and adjectival inflection. It was found that the four highly proficient late speakers of Dutch show non-target-like performance in their data involving agreement on both definite determiners and adjectives, regularly overgeneralize to the common gender, and tend to produce fewer indefinite than definite phrases in comparison to the monolinguals and early bilinguals. The findings in this study are discussed in light of previous research regarding the different mechanisms of child and adult (second) language acquisition of grammatical gender in Dutch (Blom et al., 2006, 2008; Prevost and White, 2000; White, 2003). The evidence from the current experiment suggests that: a. adults use two different routes for acquiring gender agreement in Dutch - a lexical route for agreement at the determiner, and a rule-based route for agreement at the adjective (Blom et al., 2006, 2008); b. adult speakers may have the knowledge of the rules of gender agreement in Dutch but are not successful in applying the rules consistently in their production (Prevost and White, 2000; White, 2003).Show less
This thesis describes a study in which Dutch learners of English are asked to interpret a set of novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. The complete set of test items is divided into a set...Show moreThis thesis describes a study in which Dutch learners of English are asked to interpret a set of novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. The complete set of test items is divided into a set with compounds designed to encourage participants to select the appropriate semantic relation in the compound, and another set with compounds designed to elicit figurative interpretations. The thesis investigates whether there are significant differences between Dutch ESL learners’ interpretations of Dutch (L1) novel noun-noun compounds and their interpretations of English (L2) compounds. Differences were found for the figurative compounds, but not for the relation-based compounds.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis is about Dutch prepositional phrases (PPs) headed by the preposition aan ‘on, at, to’, which generally denote locations, but are also regularly used in a ‘non-locational’ sense....Show moreThis thesis is about Dutch prepositional phrases (PPs) headed by the preposition aan ‘on, at, to’, which generally denote locations, but are also regularly used in a ‘non-locational’ sense. Specifically, this thesis concerns the second, ‘non-locational’ group, which is termed ‘situational’ because on closer inspection, they do denote not locations but situations. These 'situational aan-PPs' have a fixed structure: the preposition aan, followed by a definite article, and finally either an infinitive, verb stem or a noun as aan's complement. The first pattern, paired with the verb zijn 'to be', has been characterized in previous work as a ‘progressive construction’. This raises two questions: what exactly is progressive aspect, and how do the different verbs and complements that occur in the situational aan-PPs differ conceptually from that analysis? To answer these questions, an attempt is made at teasing apart the concepts constitutive of ‘progressivity’. There turn out to be four core components: temporal decomposability, dynamicity, boundary effectuation by the subject, and non-gnomicity. Next, the possible verbs (e.g. zijn 'to be', gaan 'to go', krijgen 'to obtain') and complements (i.e. infinitive, stem and noun) are analyzed in terms of these four components. For the complements, the four components turn out to be sufficient to distinguish them semantically: all three of them may exhibit the full, quadripartite 'progressive cluster', but infinitives do not require the effectuation of boundaries, verb stems do not exclude gnomic interpretations, and nouns strictly impose neither of these restrictions. The three complements do impose, by definition, temporal decomposability and dynamicity, which can therefore be seen as situational aan-PPs’ conceptual core. Regarding the verbs, at least eight features are relevant, including decomposability and boundary effectuation, but also (among others) causativity, continuativity and modality. These properties are contributed by the verbs, which are thus to a greater or lesser degree compatible with the conceptual structure of each of the complements. The main outcome of this thesis is a more integrated and precise account of situational aan-PPs, making it possible to gain a broader understanding of the well-known progressive construction 'zijn aan het + infinitive'. That broader understanding also sheds some light on the way that the expression of aspect is organized in Dutch. This thesis adds to the impression that this organization may be more systematic than is generally assumed.Show less
This paper presents a study of article omission in two types of headlines, focusing on the differences between article omission in printed headlines and article omission in digital headlines. The...Show moreThis paper presents a study of article omission in two types of headlines, focusing on the differences between article omission in printed headlines and article omission in digital headlines. The study is carried out on a corpus of 120 news items collected from ‘De Volkskrant’, with half of the material from the physical paper and the other half from the corresponding digital news items. The research reflects on earlier findings in the field of article omission and presents new findings regarding the differences between article omission in physical and digital headlines and regarding other determiners that can be omitted as well. A theory about shifting the focus of investigation to the realization of articles instead of the omission thereof, initiated by Oosterhof and Rawoens (2017), is further elaborated.Show less
This thesis presents a preliminary theory on the occurrence of rising declaratives in Dutch. The analysis consists of a series of hypotheses that were tested in a pilot experiment. The most...Show moreThis thesis presents a preliminary theory on the occurrence of rising declaratives in Dutch. The analysis consists of a series of hypotheses that were tested in a pilot experiment. The most important claim in the theory is that the element of surprise plays an important role in the licensing of the rising declarative in Dutch. This claim was partially supported by the data.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
