Dick Smakman

SUGGESTED THESIS TOPICS

• The sociophonetics of liquids (/l/ and /r/) in a region, place or country where one of these phonemes is critically viewed.
• Sometimes, speakers manage to imitate a native-speaker model quite closely, while some speakers are less able to or don't want to. When someone's pronunciation approximates a native speaker model, then the listener may also suspect that the speaker knows about the culture of native speakers of that accent. The listener may even have expectations regarding how the learner whose English is like that of the English or Americans. These listeners will then expect the learner whose English is so 'good' to also understand politeness rules of that culture and know about all kinds of cultural aspects of society (customs, famous people on tv, music, politics, etc). Test this in your thesis: What are the expectations of native and non-native listeners and how do they affect evaluations? Can cultural knowledge and pronunciation knowledge be separated?
• The learner who has a very noticeable non-native accent may be judged differently (more positively, even), because they are fogiven for not abiding by the native speaker's politeness rules, etc. This phenomenon may be tested; listener expectations on the basis of the accent they hear. In a more general way, the way both native and non-native speakers judge near-native accents may be tested. A common assumption is that the closer one's accent is to that of native speakers, the better. However, approximating a native accent has many drawbacks (besides advantages). This can be tested.
• Each language has  a number of pronunciation aspects that are criticial in the sense that variation in these aspects evokes strong evaluations and/or they are difficult to learn for learners. Choose a language (preferably your native tongue), and do research into what the top 5 or top 10 is regarding these features. The literature as well as interviews with ordinary speakers and local linguists will provide the answer. Then, write a pronunciation instruction booklet for learners (including sample sentences and recordings) in which this list of critical sounds is taught to learners of that language.
• Each native speaker knows that in their language there are one or two sounds that vary and that evoke strong reactions in listeners. Native speakers of the language are aware of these sounds and either try and speak in accordance with the norm or they do not. Select such a sound and write a thesis in which you describe this variation and describe the reactions the variation evokes. Try and find out, also, what the sources of the attitudes are.
• The relationship between culture and language family. Does language family determine culture? How come Rumanians share more culturally with Italians than with Bulgarians. How come Finns are culturally slightly different from both Russians and from other Scandinavian countries? Is there a way to to determine North-Western Europe culturally as well as the Mediterranean? Where does France fit in? Survey and literature study.
• The rise in status of non-native English pronunciation. A study in which older and younger people give their opinions on how acceptable native and non-native pronunciations are. Study involving theories and views by Jennifer Jenkins of European and other regional Englishes. Includes the issue of acceptability as teaching model.
• The pronunciation of Mick Jagger, singer of the Rolling Stones. Has it changed over  years, and what way? The reseach involves transcription an acoustic measurements of interview recordings. This needs to be matched with hypotheses of why individuals vary and change their language.
• Intergenerational dialect shift. An investigation into knowledge and use of specific lexical and/or grammatical dialect forms across generations. This involves making recodings of dialect speakers and finding out whether younger speakers use the dialect in a different way (not just less but in a different way).
• Linguistic landscape and how it is perceived in inner cities.
• Find, describe and analyse language ideology in daily life, the media and the ublic space: street signs, accent choice by radio presenters, the way non-standard language is embedded (announced, presented as deviant), how Frisian is written in a smaller font in signs, etc.
• Select a region or country and look for linguistic markers. Which words/sounds are critically viewed in society and what do these linguistic characteristics have in common? Are they intrinsically variable and fluid, or are they subject to prescriptive forces; perhaps they cause confusion?
• Determine the realities of the fortis/lenis contrast amongst both native speakers and non-native speakers. This topic is very phonetic/acoustic and may involve statistics. The length of pre-lenis and pre-fortus vowels needs to be measured and the effects of L1-ness and L2-ness is part of the investigation.
• Determine a sociolinguistic topic and find examples of this topic in the literature in various countries. For example, study the phenomenon called 'language policing', which is often mentioned in introductory books, and illustrate this phenomenon through a literature study by finding actual examples in the literature in which the topic is described in a certain place. This investigation will reveal whether the phenomenon at hand is perhaps a little extreme, theoretical, exceptional, or farfetched or in fact commonly occurs in places across the globe.

PAST THESIS TOPICS

Pronunciation/phonetics

• Pitch as a cue to compare Chinese, Dutch and native speakers' sentence accent in happy-sounding English
• The acquisition of pronunciation by British learners of Chinese
• Sociolinguistic choices in western classical singing - a study of the articulatory modification of /e/
• Reading two languages. An acoustic description of code-switching in Friesland and Wales
• When all is said and done. An assessment of the effects of pronunciation training on the speech of native Dutch learners of English
• Phonological variation among African American rappers; significance of features in the "dirty" south and New York city
• How British or US is the English of Dutch learner’s pronunciation?
• Silences in glottal stops by native speakers and non-native speakers
• Correlation between perceived and real dialect difference
• Lax/tense in Singapore English
• Are we at sixes and sevens? An evaluation of grading practices of teachers assessing English pronunciation

Sociolinguistics

• Competing attitudes in Poland: a comparison of attitudes towards foreign languages; English, French and German
• Down under stereotypes; a comparative study of stereotypes and racial attitudes in Australia and New Zealand
• He brought home the English - Language loss at the Isle of Skye
• Male and female attitudes towards the English language in Cyprus; a study about Greek-Cypriots in Cyprus
• The Australians; what they are and what they speak
• Biological sex versus social gender differences in the writings of English eleven-year-old boys and girls
• Looking at cosmopolitan English; English words and phrases in the Dutch and French edition of a woman's magazine
• Inner beauty: Dutch and Chinese evaluations of English language varieties
• Attitudes & acceptability; an evaluation of Dutch speakers' accents in English by other Dutch speakers
• What makes them positive or negative? Evaluation of non-native English accents
• Conditionals in Krio from Sierra Leone
• An empirical study of gender differences and similarities in English language use among Chinese learners
• ESP inhibitions: usage thresholds and user strategies in the use of corporate English
• Look to the future: the production and perception of the future by Chinese and Dutch learners of English
• Variation and change in African American English. A comparison of early and modern African American English
• Particle usage in naturalistic Singaporean English. Forensic implications
• English by Germans: attitudes and skills
• English/Italian in the daily speech of Slovenes: regional differences
• A matched a guise test involving British and American English
• Style in Second Language Academic English - A Contrastive Rhetoric Analysis of Scholarly Publications by Polish and Anglophone Authors
• Language shift in Huangdao district, Qingdao city
• Language choices in de Hoekschewaard
• Language shift in Romagnolo, Italy
• The English in Dutch pop music lyrics
• Shift in a Latvian dialect
• Shift in an Indian dialect
• Language shift on the island of Goeree Overflakkee

Teaching and language acquisition

• Who is hot and who is not? The effect of teacher nationality on the evaluation of student work and on perceived teacher training quality
• Raising children bilingually. Which factors account for a successful upbringing?
• Early English education in Korea
• Which factors determine English language levels amongst ethnic students?
• Learning success at bilingual VWO
• Trilingualuity: criteria to define the real first language
• The role of literature education in secondary schools
• Vocabulary learning strategies
• Ways to teach/offer vocabulary
• Feedback (negative and positive) in SLA success