Accents of Dutch

Renée van Bezooijen | Vakgroep voor Algemene Taalwetenschap & Dialectologie, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen

Johannes Ytsma | Fryske Akademy, Leeuwarden

Abstract. This experimental study deals with the perception of regionally colored accents of Standard Dutch (from Groningen, Friesland, Limburg, Zuid-Holland, and West-Flanders) as compared to 'pure' Standard Dutch. Three different aspects were investigated: speech-based personality impression, perceived linguistic divergence, and geographic identifiability. Listeners originated from different parts of the Netherlands. As for personality impression, speakers of 'pure' Standard Dutch were perceived to be significantly more dominant (arrogant, self-assured, and active) than accented speakers from Groningen, Friesland, Limburg, and West-Flanders, and they received significantly higher ratings on the integrity dimension (reliable, fair, and education) than accented speakers from Limburg. No other significant differences (e.g. related to social attractiveness) were found. With respect to linguistic divergence, the speakers from the south (Limburg and West-Flanders) were perceived to have significantly stronger and more homogeneous accents than the speakers from the north (Groningen and Friesland) and the west (Zuid-Holland). Finally, the geographic origin of the speakers from Limburg appeared to be the easiest to identify and that of the speakers from West-Flanders and Groningen the most difficult.

Published online: 01 January 2000
https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.13.07bez

Cited by

Cited by 8 other publications

Clopper, Cynthia G., Brianna Conrey & David B. Pisoni

2005. Effects of Talker Gender on Dialect Categorization. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 24:2 ► pp. 182 ff.

Clopper, Cynthia G. & David B. Pisoni

2004. Some acoustic cues for the perceptual categorization of American English regional dialects. Journal of Phonetics 32:1 ► pp. 111 ff.

Clopper, Cynthia G. & David B. Pisoni

2007. Free classification of regional dialects of American English. Journal of Phonetics 35:3 ► pp. 421 ff.

Grondelaers, Stefan, Roeland van Hout & Paul van Gent

2019. Re-evaluating the Prestige of Regional Accents in Netherlandic Standard Dutch: The Role of Accent Strength and Speaker Gender. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 38:2 ► pp. 215 ff.

Kanjee, Raageen, Scott Watter, Alexandre Sévigny & Karin R. Humphreys

2010. A case of foreign accent syndrome: Acoustic analyses and an empirical test of accent perception. Journal of Neurolinguistics 23:6 ► pp. 580 ff.

Lopes, Leonardo Wanderley, Ivonaldo Leidson Barbosa Lima, Eveline Goncalves Silva, Larissa Nadjara Alves de Almeida & Anna Alice Figueiredo de Almeida

2013. Accent and television journalism: evidence for the practice of speech language pathologists and audiologists. CoDAS 25:5 ► pp. 475 ff.

Schilling, Natalie & Alexandria Marsters

2015. Unmasking Identity: Speaker Profiling for Forensic Linguistic Purposes. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35 ► pp. 195 ff.

Thomas, Erik R.

2011. Sociolinguistic variables and cognition. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 2:6 ► pp. 701 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 07 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.