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Gender assignment
to anglicisms in Dutch:
a variationist perspective
Karlien Franco, Eline Zenner & Dirk Speelman
RU Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics
Overview
1. Introduction
2. Data & variables
3. Analyses & results
Part 1: determinants of gender assignment
Part 2: (dis)agreement between respondents
4. Conclusion
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Overview
1. Introduction
2. Data & variables
3. Analyses & results
Part 1: determinants of gender assignment
Part 2: (dis)agreement between respondents
4. Conclusion
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Introduction
de / het abstract
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
singular definite article
common gender neuter gender
de het
Introduction
de / het abstract
de / het blog
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
2C singular definite article
common gender neuter gender
de het
https://weblog.bol.com/
Introduction
de / het abstract
de / het blog
de / het establishment
gender in Dutch:
• sg. definite article used to identify gender
• marked on other features of NP as well
• largely arbitrary (Haeseryn et al. 1997)
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
2C singular definite article
common gender neuter gender
de het
Gender assignment to loanwords
loanwords generally follow the gender system of native nouns
but gender in Dutch largely arbitrary
other factors that apply to loanwords:
• semantic analogy (controversial)
e.g. Sp. la dirección (‘address’) → la URL (De La Cruz Cabanillas et al. 2007)
• unmarked / default gender host language
~ most frequent gender? (= common gender in Dutch)
• gender of noun in donor language (gender copy)
→ does not apply to anglicisms
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Gender assignment to anglicisms in Dutch
anglicisms generally get common gender (de)
unless there is some reason for using neuter gender (het)
• influence of semantic field:
– drinks → common gender e.g. de gin, de tonic
– collectives → neuter gender e.g. het panel, het team
– substances → both e.g. het plastic, de/het nylon
– ...
• influence of morphology/suffixes:
– -ing → common gender e.g. de mededeling → de dancing
– -ment → neuter gender e.g. het argument → het management
• gender of closely related equivalent (cf. semantic analogy)
– cognate e.g. het huis → het arthouse
– translational equivalent e.g. het spek → het bacon
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Gender assignment to anglicisms in Dutch
anglicisms generally get common gender (de)
unless there is some reason for using neuter gender (het)
→ what happens when more than one factor applies to the loanword?
• process of gender assignment to loanwords is unclear (Haeseryn et al.
1997)
– often overview of rules + examples (Berteloot & Van der Sijs 2003,
Haeseryn et al. 1997, Schenck 1985)
– Geerts 1996: hierarchy of rules:
cognate > prototypical > suffix > gender
gender gender of gender translational
semantic field equivalent
• suggests that there is one and only one gender for each anglicism
e.g. het bedrijf → het concern (rule: translational equivalent)
het argument → het management (rule: anglicisms ending in suffix – ment are neuter gender)
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
The stability of the gender of loanwords
the gender of loanwords is assumed to be stable
e.g. Corbett 1991
• gender variation often assigned to the role of the speech community (e.g.
Poplack et al.1982): established nouns are no longer expected to show
variation
• Callies et al. (2012)
– explicitly focus on variation in gender assignment to loanwords
– more variation found in experimental data than in corpus data
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Research questions
1. which features influence gender assignment to anglicisms in Dutch?
2. how stable is the gender of loanwords in a speech community? is
gender variability related to the degree of establishment of the
anglicism?
→ innovations:
• established and unestablished anglicisms
• analysis consists of two parts:
– determinants of gender assignment
– (dis)agreement between respondents
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Overview
1. Introduction
2. Data & variables
3. Analyses & results
Part 1: determinants of gender assignment
Part 2: (dis)agreement between respondents
4. Conclusion
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Data: questionnaire
• two parts:
– personal information
– forced-choice task to elicit definite determiner and personal pronoun
for 175 nominal anglicisms:
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Forced-choice task
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
development
facelift
dress
reality
tenniscoach
mummy
entertainment
suspense
copy
release
statement
hippie
carpooling
aquaplaning
busticket
exit-poll
catsuit
chick
sneak
achievement
extra-time
blooper
knowhow
teamspirit
dinner
American dream
stream
contest
lovestory
baseballbat
witch
sit-in
believer
bodypainting
trench
wall
printing
leisure
sensor
error
pay
spray
establishment
camping ground
assist
skateboard
intercom
search
gallery
jack
dancefloor
basketbal
researcher
majorette
quizzer
network
showcase
spot
computersoftware
noise
suburb
escalatie
tennismatch
concept car
supermarkt
technology
snowboarder
disc
countdown
tumbling
sound
shooting
chill-out
stationwagon
indian summer
slam
character
bulldog
comedian
popart
party
diskette
briefing
shoppingcenter
callgirl
youngster
franchising
voucher
demand
squat
ace
roadbook
recycling
boogie
engine
hometown
guesthouse
supply
hospitality
track
e-learning
hovercraft
football
talkshow
vibe
freebee
empathie
rate
fairness
marketing
sticker
package
inspector
click
opportunity
braindrain
black-out
safety
member
panty
draft
view
freelancester
beach
shareholder
supermodel
showtime
town
security
loafer
cooler
tracker
queen
career day
steeple
combo
soundsystem
mall
tuning
patchwork
babyfoon
input
publicity
underdog
key
award
check-in
gangster
rock'n'roll
jingle
smog
column
theory
sense of urgency
publishing
director
scorecard
showbiz
surround
battle
image
jogger
channel
clash
resource
supercomputer
creditcard
hotelmanager
it-girl
wash
cover
nanny
cashflow
nickname
container ship
gossip
screen
Data: questionnaire
• two parts:
– personal information
– forced-choice task to elicit definite determiner and personal pronoun
for 175 nominal anglicisms:
• 45 respondents:
– students at University of Leuven
– mean age 21.5
– men underrepresented (10 men, 35 women)
– from all over Flanders
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Influential features
• establishment of anglicism
• animacy of anglicism
• article of lexical-semantic equivalent
• socio-economic properties of participants
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Establishment of anglicism
• two types of anglicisms based on listedness in Van Dale14
– 97 recent established nouns:
• listed and borrowed in 1950s or later
• information about listed gender (de / het)
– 78 unestablished nouns
• collected using newspaper corpora (TwNC and LeNC): unlisted
anglicisms that occur ≥ 100 times in both corpora
• frequency information
– correlation infrequency and use of default gender?
– frequent: <300 occurrences in TwNC and LeNC
– infrequent: >300 occurrences in TwNC and LeNC
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
levels frequency in questionnaire
established anglicism established de 66
established het 12
unestablished anglicism unestablished frequent 49
unestablished infrequent 48
Influential features
• establishment of anglicism
• animacy of anglicism
• article of lexical-semantic equivalent
• socio-economic properties of participants
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
cf. Haeseryn et al. (1997):
people and animals → common gender
e.g. de onderwijzer ‘the teacher’, de leeuw ‘the lion’
• distribution in questionnaire:
- animate 27 items
- inanimate: 148 items
Influential features
• establishment of anglicism
• animacy of anglicism
• article of lexical-semantic equivalent
• socio-economic properties of participants
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
cf. supra: semantic analogy / closely related equivalent
• cognate gender
e.g. het bord → het skateboard
↔ gender of translation
e.g. het strand → het beach (no cognate)
• distribution in questionnaire:
- 133 items have de as article of lexical-semantic equivalent
- 42 items have het as article of lexical-semantic equivalent
Influential features
• establishment of anglicism
• animacy of anglicism
• article of lexical-semantic equivalent
• socio-economic properties of participants
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
predictor levels number of respondents
gender female 35
male 10
region central region 24
east of Flanders 13
west of Flanders 8
education parents high 27
low 18
proficiency in good 25
English bad 20
dialect knowledge no 26
yes 19
Overview
1. Introduction
2. Data & variables
3. Analyses & results
Part 1: determinants of gender assignment
Part 2: (dis)agreement between respondents
4. Conclusion
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Determinants of gender assignment
• previous research on anglicisms in Dutch:
– usually based on small corpora/word lists
– raw frequencies or proportions
→ methodological innovation: inferential statistics
• method: mixed effects logistic regression
– binary response variable article: de or het
– random intercepts for respondents and anglicisms
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Results
• model performs well:
– 91.33% correct predictions (baseline 85%)
– C value 0.93
• 85% de responses (common gender)
• three predictors reach significance:
– establishment of anglicism
– article of equivalent
– animacy of anglicism
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Results
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
established
de
established
het
unestablished
frequent
unestablished
infrequent
establishment
art
icle
establishment
het
de
Results
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
established
de
established
het
unestablished
frequent
unestablished
infrequent
establishment
art
icle
establishment
het
de
***
**
p < 0.1
Results
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
p < 0.001
article of lexical-semantic equivalent
het
de
art
icle
article of equivalent de het
Results
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
het
de
animacy animate inanimate
animacy
art
icle
p < 0.001
Results
• predictors have expected effect:
– de is used very frequently
– proportion of het responses increases for anglicisms that
• are listed with het in the dictionary
• are unestablished and infrequent
• have a neuter gender lexical-semantic equivalent
• are inanimate
• variation in the amount of disagreement between the respondents in the
data set per anglicism:
e.g. statement: 9 respondents out of 45 select de, 36 choose het
vs. loafer: 41 respondents choose de (4 respondents NA)
vs. smog: 36 respondents choose de, 9 respondents choose het
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
sm
og
sta
tem
ent
loa
fer
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Overview
1. Introduction
2. Data & variables
3. Analyses & results
Part 1: determinants of gender assignment
Part 2: (dis)agreement between respondents
4. Conclusion
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Measuring (dis)agreement between
respondents
new measure of homogeneity in the responses per anglicism
• based on measure of internal uniformity (Geeraerts, Grondelaers &
Speelman 1999)
• calculation:
2 ∗ (−1
2+ 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒² + 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛ℎ𝑒𝑡²)
• homogeneity = 1 when every respondent chooses the same definite
article
homogeneity = 0 when half of the respondents choose de and half of
the respondents choose het
e.g. skateboard: homogeneity = 91% (0.9131)
achievement: homogeneity = 0% (0.0005)
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Measuring (dis)agreement between
respondents
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
proportion of de
hom
ogeneity
Analysis
• linear regression analysis:
– response: homogeneity per anglicism
– predictors:
• establishment of anglicism
• animacy of anglicism
• article of lexical-semantic equivalent
• model explains about 26% of the variation in the data set (Adjusted R² =
0.2654)
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Results
• mean homogeneity: 71%
• three predictors reach significance:
– article of lexical-semantic equivalent
– establishment
– animacy
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Results
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
more
homogeneity
less
homogeneity
article of equivalent de het
hom
og
eneity
article of lexical-semantic equivalent
p < 0.001
Results
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
hom
og
eneity
established
de
less
homogeneity established
het
unestablished
frequent
unestablished
infrequent
establishment
establishment more
homogeneity
Results
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
hom
og
eneity
established
de
less
homogeneity established
het
unestablished
frequent
unestablished
infrequent
establishment
establishment more
homogeneity
** **
Results
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
animacy animate inanimate
animacy
hom
og
eneity
less
homogeneity
more
homogeneity p < 0.001
Results
• less homogeneity in the responses when:
– the article of the lexical-semantic equivalent of anglicism is not de
– the anglicism is not listed with de in the dictionary
– the anglicism is unestablished and infrequent
– the anglicism is not animate
→ less homogeneity in conflict situations and especially in case of
conflict with (default) article de
vs. previous studies: clear set of rules determines one (and only one)
article per anglicism
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Overview
1. Introduction
2. Data & variables
3. Analyses & results
Part 1: determinants of gender assignment
Part 2: (dis)agreement between respondents
4. Conclusion
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
Conclusion
two methods to study variation in the gender of anglicisms in Dutch:
determinants of the gender of anglicisms
establishment, article of lexical-semantic equivalent & animacy
variation in the degree of homogeneity in responses
no one & only one gender
less homogeneity in conflict situations
(vs. hierarchy of gender assignment rules)
attention for the degree of establishment of anglicism
variation occurs for established anglicisms as well
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
References
Berteloot, A., & Van der Sijs, N. (2003). Dutch. In M. Görlach (Ed.), English in Europe (pp. 37–56).
Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Callies, M., Onysko, A., & Ogiermann, E. (2012). Investigating gender variation of English
loanwords in German. In C. Furiassi, V. Pulcini, & F. Rodríguez González (Eds.), The Anglicization of European Lexis (pp. 65–89). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Publishing Company.
Corbett, G. G. (1991). Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
De La Cruz Cabanillas, I., Tejedor Martínez, C., Díez Prados, M., & Cerdá Redondo, E. (2007).
English loanwords in Spanish computer language. English for Specific Purposes, 26(1), 52–78.
Geeraerts, D., Grondelaers, S., & Speelman, D. (1999). Convergentie en divergentie in de Nederlandse woordenschat: een onderzoek naar kleding- en voetbaltermen. P.J. Meertens-
Instituut.
Geerts, G. (1996). De genusbepalende eigenschappen van Engelse leenwoorden in het
Nederlands. Verslagen En Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie Voor Nederlandse Taal- En Letterkunde, 106(2-3), 137–146.
Haeseryn, W., Romijn, K., Geerts, G., De Rooij, J., & Van den Toorn, M. C. (1997). Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst. Groningen/Deurne: Martinus Nijhoff uitgevers/Wolters Plantyn.
Poplack, S., Pousada, A., & Sankoff, D. (1982). Competing influences on gender assignment:
variable process, stable outcome. Lingua, 57, 1–28.
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015
References
Schenck, A. (1985). Genusbepalende eigenschappen van Engelse leenwoorden in het Nederlands.
KU Leuven.
Van Dale14 = Den Boon, T., & Geeraerts, D. (2005). Van Dale Groot Woordenboek van de Nederlandse Taal (14th ed.). Utrecht / Antwerpen: Van Dale Lexicografie
Taal & Tongval 2015, Gent 27.11.2015