Masters Degrees (General Linguistics)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (General Linguistics) by Author "Beyers, Talya"

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    Scents and sensitivity : the emotional valence and flexibility of Afrikaans taste and smell adjectives
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) Beyers, Talya; Bylund, Emanuel; Oostendorp, Marcelyn; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The present study investigated the influence of perceptual experience on the emotional valence of Afrikaans adjectives associated with smell and taste, as well as the emotional valence of the contexts within which these adjectives occur. This study has three research questions, the first of which is "In comparison to adjectives associated with other sensory modalities, to what extent are Afrikaans taste and smell adjectives emotionally valenced?", the second of which is "In comparison to adjectives associated with other sensory modalities, to what extent do Afrikaans smell and taste adjectives appear in highly emotionally valenced phrases?", and the third of which is "In comparison to adjectives associated with other sensory modalities, to what extent are Afrikaans taste and smell adjectives emotionally flexible?". This study consisted of two norming studies and a corpus study. In the first norming study, 60 Afrikaans adjectives were normed for sensory modality and valence by 78 native Afrikaans speakers. In the second norming study, 344 Afrikaans nouns were normed for valence by 140 native Afrikaans speakers. Occurrences of phrases consisting of these adjectives and nouns in the VivA (Virtuele Instituut vir Afrikaans) Korpusportaal Omvattend 1.9 (2021) corpus were analysed. The present study investigated the influence of perceptual experience on the emotional valence of Afrikaans adjectives associated with smell and taste, as well as the emotional valence of the contexts within which these adjectives occur. This study has three research questions, the first of which is "In comparison to adjectives associated with other sensory modalities, to what extent are Afrikaans taste and smell adjectives emotionally valenced?", the second of which is "In comparison to adjectives associated with other sensory modalities, to what extent do Afrikaans smell and taste adjectives appear in highly emotionally valenced phrases?", and the third of which is "In comparison to adjectives associated with other sensory modalities, to what extent are Afrikaans taste and smell adjectives emotionally flexible?". This study consisted of two norming studies and a corpus study. In the first norming study, 60 Afrikaans adjectives were normed for sensory modality and valence by 78 native Afrikaans speakers. In the second norming study, 344 Afrikaans nouns were normed for valence by 140 native Afrikaans speakers. Occurrences of phrases consisting of these adjectives and nouns in the VivA (Virtuele Instituut vir Afrikaans) Korpusportaal Omvattend 1.9 (2021) corpus were analysed. The results of this study are inconsistent with previous findings that smell and taste words are significantly more emotionally valenced and appear in more emotionally valenced and flexible contexts than words associated with the other sensory modalities. It was found that Afrikaans taste and smell adjectives are only marginally more emotionally valenced, and this valence does not extend to the phrases in which these adjectives occur. This challenges the idea that sensory language is embodied to the extent that it influences patterns in language use and highlights the need to study a variety of languages to draw conclusions about the embodiment of sensory language.