Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T16:48:14.924Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Let's Agree to Disagree. (Variation in) the Assignment of Gender to Nominal Anglicisms in Dutch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2018

Karlien Franco ,
Eline Zenner  and
Dirk Speelman
Karlien Franco*
Affiliation:
QLVL, KU Leuven
Eline Zenner*
Affiliation:
QLVL, KU Leuven
Dirk Speelman*
Affiliation:
QLVL, KU Leuven
*
QLVL, KU Leuven, Department of Linguistics, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, PO box 3308, 3000 Leuven, Belgium, [[email protected]], [[email protected]], [[email protected]]
QLVL, KU Leuven, Department of Linguistics, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, PO box 3308, 3000 Leuven, Belgium, [[email protected]], [[email protected]], [[email protected]]
QLVL, KU Leuven, Department of Linguistics, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, PO box 3308, 3000 Leuven, Belgium, [[email protected]], [[email protected]], [[email protected]]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate gender assignment to recently borrowed English loanwords in Dutch, introducing several innovations to the field of gender assignment to anglicisms. For example, we use multiple mixed-effects logistic regression to determine which factors underlie gender assignment in Dutch. This model indicates that there is variation in the degree of homogeneity in the speech community (that is, agreement among respondents) concerning the gender assigned to an anglicism; therefore, we analyze the contexts in which homogeneity is the lowest. Our analysis reveals that the degree of consensus does not solely depend on how established an anglicism is. In contrast to what has been argued in previous studies, gender assignment to anglicisms in Dutch is not a categorical process: Gender variation increases when respondents are faced with a conflict between the default article de and some factor that favors its neuter counterpart, het.*

Keywords

gender assignmentgender variationDutchanglicismcontact linguistics
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 43 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Audring, Jenny. 2009. Reinventing pronoun gender. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Baayen, Harald R. 2008. Analyzing linguistic data. A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berteloot, Armand, & Van der Sijs, Nicoline. 2003. Dutch. English in Europe, ed. by Görlach, Manfred, 37–56. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan, & Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Budzhak-Jones, Svitlana. 1997. Quantitative analysis of gender assignment in mono/bilingual discourse. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 4. 67–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callies, Marcus, Onysko, Alexander, & Ogiermann, Eva. 2012. Investigating gender variation of English loanwords in German. The anglicization of European lexis, ed. by Furiassi, Cristiano, Virginia Pulcini, & Félix Rodríguez González, 65–89. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Chirsheva, Galina. 2009. Gender in Russian-English code-switching. International Journal of Bilingualism 13. 63–90.Google Scholar
Clyne, Michael. 1992. Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Corbett, Greville G. 1991. Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Corbett, Greville G. 2014. Gender typology. The expression of gender, ed. by Corbett, Greville G., 87–130. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cruz Cabanillas, Isabel de la, Martínez, Cristina Tejedor, Prados, Mercedes Díez, & Redondo, Esperanza Cerdá. 2007. English loanwords in Spanish computer language. English for Specific Purposes 26. 52–78.Google Scholar
Faraway, Julian J. 2006. Extending the linear model with R. Generalized linear, mixed effects and nonparametric regression models. Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Geerts, Guido. 1970. De nominale klassifikatie van ontleningen. De Nieuwe Taalgids 63. 43–53.Google Scholar
Geerts, Guido. 1996. De genusbepalende eigenschappen van Engelse leenwoorden in het Nederlands. Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 106. 137–146.Google Scholar
Haeringen, Coenraad B. Van. 1951. Genusverandering bij stofnamen. De Nieuwe Taalgids 44. 7–14.Google Scholar
Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirsten, Geerts, Guido, De Rooij, Jaap, & Van Den Toorn, Maarten C.. 1997. Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst. Groningen: Martinus Nijhoff uitgevers.Google Scholar
Hamans, Camiel. 2009. Het geslacht van leenwoorden. Die tand van die tyd. Opstelle opgedra aan Jac Conradie, ed. by Burger, Willie & Pienaar, Marné, 24–25. Stellenbosch: Sun Media.Google Scholar
Haugen, Einar. 1969. The Norwegian language in America: A study in bilingual behavior. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Hock, Hans H., & Joseph, Brian D.. 1996. Language history, language change, and language relationship: An introduction to historical and comparative linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Koenen, Liesbeth, & Smits, Rik. 1992. Peptalk. De Engelse woordenschat van het Nederlands. Amsterdam: Nijgh & Van Ditmar.Google Scholar
Kraaikamp, Margot. 2012. The semantics of the Dutch gender System. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 24. 193–232.Google Scholar
Muysken, Pieter. 2000. Bilingual speech: A typology of code-mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Onysko, Alexander. 2007. Anglicisms in German: Borrowing, lexical productivity, and written codeswitching. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onysko, Alexander, Callies, Marcus, & Ogiermann, Eva. 2013. Gender variation of anglicisms in German: The influence of cognitive factors and regional varieties. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 49. 103–136.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, Pousada, Alicia, & Sankoff, David. 1982. Competing influences on gender assignment: Variable process, stable outcome. Lingua 57. 1–28.Google Scholar
Posthumus, Jan. 1996. Het woordgeslacht van Engelse leenwoorden. Onze Taal 65. 279.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey, & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. New York, NY: Longman.Google Scholar
Rothe, Astrid. 2014. On the variation of gender in nominal language mixings. New perspectives on lexical borrowing: Onomasiological, methodological and phraseological innovations, ed. by Zenner, Eline & Kristiansen, Gitte, 191–223. Boston, MA: Mouton De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Schenck, Alfons. 1985. Genusbepalende eigenschappen van Engelse leenwoorden in het Nederlands. Leuven, Belgium: KU Leuven MA thesis.Google Scholar
Smead, Robert N. 2000. On the assignment of gender to Chicano Anglicisms: Processes and results. The Bilingual Review 23. 277–297.Google Scholar
Thornton, Anna M. 2009. Constraining gender assignment rules. Language Sciences 31. 14–32.Google Scholar
Verhoeven, Gerard, & Jansen, Frank. 1996. Het woordgeslacht van Engelse leenwoorden. Onze Taal 65. 156–157.Google Scholar
Violin-Wigent, Anne. 2006. Gender assignment to nouns codeswitched into French: Observations and explanations. International Journal of Bilingualism 10. 253–276.Google Scholar
Vogelaer, Gunther de, & De Sutter, Gert. 2011. The geography of gender change: Pronominal and adnominal gender in Flemish dialects of Dutch. Language Sciences 33. 192–205.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Uriel. 1968. Languages in contact: Findings and problems. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Zenner, Eline. 2013. Cognitive contact linguistics. The macro, meso and micro influence of English on Dutch. Leuven, Belgium: KU Leuven dissertation.Google Scholar
Zenner, Eline, Speelman, Dirk, & Geeraerts, Dirk. 2012. Cognitive sociolinguistics meets loanword research: Measuring variation in the success of anglicisms in Dutch. Cognitive Linguistics 23. 749–792.Google Scholar
Zenner, Eline, Speelman, Dirk, & Geeraerts, Dirk. 2014. Core vocabulary, borrowability and entrenchment: A usage-based onomasiological approach. Diachronica 31. 74–105.Google Scholar

Dictionaries and Corpora

Boon, Ton Den, & Geeraerts, Dirk. 2008. Van Dale Groot Woordenboek van de Nederlandse Taal. Utrecht: Van Dale Lexicografie. 14th edition.Google Scholar
Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek [Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics]. 2010. Standaard Beroepenclassificatie [Standard Classification of Professions]. Available at http://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/onze-diensten/methoden/classificaties/onderwijs%20en%20beroepen/beroepenclassificatie–isco-en-sbc–, accessed on 2 April, 2015.Google Scholar
Het Groene Boekje. Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal. 2005. Instituut voor Nederlandse Lexicologie & Nederlandse Taalunie. Utrecht: Van Dale. Available at http://www.woordenlijst.org, accessed on 2 April, 2015.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary. 2013. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at http://www.oed.com/, accessed on 2 April, 2015.Google Scholar
R: A language and environment for statistical computing. 2013. R Development Core Team. Vienna, Austria. Available at http://www.R-project.org/, accessed on 20 October, 2016.Google Scholar
Van Dale Groot woordenboek Engels-Nederlands. 2006. Utrecht: Van Dale Lexicografie.Google Scholar