bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Woordvormingsonderwijs en de Uitbreiding Van de Passieve Nederlandse Woordenschat Van Allochtone Leerlingen
Authors: Coenen Marja
Published: March 2014

Many ethnic minority children have enormous gaps in their Dutch vocabulary. In the research described in this article it has been examined whether these children can learn new words more effectively after instruction about Dutch lexical morphology. It was expected that pupils with knowledge about the structure of words would be able to better analyze parts of the structure of unknown words.
However, lexical-morphological rules contain many restrictions and irregularities, which is one of the reasons why many of these rules are acquired rather late in the language acquisition process. It was thought that explicit instruction about simple lexical morphological rules might bring about an improved awareness of structures of words.
A test-retest experiment was set up in order to find empirical proof for this assumption. First a pre-test was given, in which Dutch children as well as ethnic minority children (age 12) participated. In this test the passive knowledge of nine affixes was measured. Instruction about lexical morphology was given one week afterwards. The effect of this instruction was examined in a post-test.
After analyzing the results the most important hypothesis was proved: the pupils showed significant progress on the post-test. The ethnic minority children even made more progress than the Dutch children. Children appararently can become aware of structures of words through explicit instruction. The knowledge gained this way enables them to analyze new words more effectively and helps them to enlarge their passive vocabulary.
Kennis, Vaardigheid en 'Performance' in de Taal/Spraak-Ontwikkeling
Authors: Elbers Loekie , Wijnen Frank
Published: March 2014

Chomsky's notions of 'knowledge' and 'ability' are discussed, and are distinguished from the notion 'performance'. 'Knowledge' is taken to refer to the native speaker's abstract knowledge of the language system, 'ability' is taken to refer to the (no less abstract) processing mechanisms underlying speech production and perception, whereas 'performance' is used for referring to the actual linguistic behavior at some particular moment, in some particular situation. Subsequently, a case-study of the development of language and speech during the third year is presented. Twelve hours of spontaneous speech, produced by one child at ages 2:4, 2:6, 2:7, 2:8, 2:9, and 2:11 are analyzed (two hours per period). The development of sentence structure over periods suggests that the child is differentiating function words and content words as separate word classes (development of 'knowledge'). Also, there is a temporary increase of disfluencies and production errors in the periods 2:7 to 2:9 (development of 'performance'). It is argued that these changes in knowledge on the one hand and performance on the other are related, and that this relation is mediated by changes in 'ability', i.e., in the processing mechanism underlying speech production. Two kinds of 'effort' displayed by this mechanism are distinguished: 'syntactic' or planning effort, which is investigated by analyzing developmental changes in the child's peak performances (his longest, most complex sentences in each of the six periods), and 'articulatory' effort, which is investigated by analyzing developmental changes in the way in which the words of sentences that are immediate and complete self-repetitions are articulated, as compared to the way in which these same words were articulated in the preceding instance of the sentence. In his syntactic effort, the child appears to become increasingly concerned with producing function words; at age 2:7 (the start of the temporary increase in disfluencies) there is a significant increase in the relative number of function words per sentence, and this is especially clear in the longest sentences. At the same time however, the child seems to concentrate his articulatory effort on content words; from age 2:7 onward content words tend to be articulated more accurately in the repetition of an utterance than in its first production, whereas the same does not hold for function words. In the Discussion it is suggested that the differentiation of function and content words ('knowledge') causes a certain imbalance within the developing production mechanism ('ability'), in that function words and content words start 'competing' for effort, each at a different processing level. This, in its turn, might play a role in the observed temporary increase of disfluencies and production errors ('performance').
Taalspecifieke Tekstkenmerken.
Authors: Blok-Boas Atie
Published: March 2014

This article deals with problems of writing in a foreign language that are caused by language specific characteristics of the target language, in this case Italian. In writing texts in a foreign language, learners of that language have to cope with difficulties that are caused by certain categorial differences between source language and target language. In this article the authors do not deal with differences at a micro-level, like spelling and morphology, but rather with more structural differences at the sentence level. First the target group, its starting position and the teaching aims are described.Then an attempt is made at defining the language specific characteristics the target group has to learn. The teaching materials are based on an analysis of example texts in the target texts and similar texts in the source language. Finally some suggestions for the didactics of writing are given.
Reactietijdmeting op Woorden in Verbonden Spraak
Authors: Paijmans-Hazenberg Suzanne
Published: March 2014

In order to test whether reaction times to auditory stimuli can be used as a measurement device for hearing impaired subjects, a criterion test was devel-oped with audiometrically normal subjects. It was hypothesized that these normal subjects would recognize a word in connected speech more slowly in an unfavourable than in a favourable sound-noise ratio. To test this hypothesis a pilot was run with this criterion test, consisting of 65 auditorily presented sentences each with a visually presented target. 25 subjects participated in the research. In one third of the sentences a significant correlation was found between S/N ratio and reaction time.
The fact that no significant relationship was found in the other sentences may probably be attributed to a combination of factors like differences in individ-ual reaction times and in concentration, different context factors, but certainly also to the presentation of the targetword prior to the auditory signal. Before this test can be used on a larger scale, certain adaptations will have to be made.
Dt-Duiveltje
Authors: Zuidema J.J. , Weber J.
Published: March 2014

Dutch verb spelling is a rather complicated system of rival orthographic pre-scriptions. The spelling of Dutch verbs not only depends on their pronuncia-tion, but also on syntax and semantics. Pupils are often incapable of learning the system, even after many hours of verb spelling instruction. Investigations lead to the insight that a rule-oriented algorithmic method is more effective than traditional methods. But pupils still make a lot of errors.
In this study we investigate how computers can improve verb-spelling performance of pupils. A first way could be the use of a word processor with an built-in spelling checker. Spelling checkers find errors in typed text, but existing spelling checkers cannot correct Dutch verbs automatically. Artificially Intelligent spelling checkers will do (but will be expensive for instructional use). A second way of improving spelling performance is the use of tutorial programs. We discuss algorithm-based instructional programs that introduce and train the verb spelling system and its underlying concepts. As a third way to improve spelling performance we introduce the instructional program DT-DUIVELTJE (DT-DEMON).
DT-DEMON can be characterized as a half-automatic spelling checker for Dutch verbs. In most cases it can find and correct verb spellings automatically. In the remaining cases DT-DEMON asks the user one or two questions, in order to complete the analysis.
The core of the program is a simulation of a human expert in verb spelling. An expert is supposed to find correct orthographic prescriptions as a result of very economic decisions, i.e. based on an analysis of lower-order language regularities. For instance, when the spelling of a verb can be found by analyzing letter sequences, a syntactic analysis can be omitted. In this way an expert writes far more verbs correctly as a result of automatic pattern recognition.
Although the internal inference mechanism of DT-DEMON is one of pat-tern recognition, the dialogue with the user is rule-oriented. The program also knows the rule-oriented algorithm for verb spelling.
A final remark about the way DT-DEMON internally processes, concerns the number of analyses performed. The program does not just stop searching when it finds a solution, but continues until all solutions are found. The number of successful redundant analyses is an indication of the degree of difficulty of the spelling problem. A lot of solutions means: easy; just one solution means: a less simple problem; not even one complete, automatically found solution means: pay attention, this is a difficult problem.
DT-DEMON is suitable for instructional purposes once a pupil has learned the rules that govern verb spelling. The program works like an online spelling checker. When there is a difficult spelling problem, and the program cannot find a complete solution itself, it will ask the student for help. By doing so, it prevents errors due to premature automatization of spelling skills.
The use of DT-DEMON is not restricted to precooked exercises, it can handle free language productions.
Individuele Verschillen in Het Leren Van Talen
Authors: van Hout Roeland , Hulstijn Jan H. , Meijers Guust
Published: March 2014

This contribution gives a global introduction into recent developments in theory and research on individual differences in language learning. It attempts to outline a more general framework for the contributions in this volume on learner differences. The following five questions are focused upon: (A) What kind of theoretical developments can be noticed and which mutual relationships exist between different theoretical models? (B) Which links with other fields of research into differences in human (learning) behaviour can be established? (C) What is the contribution of the factors aptitude and social class in relation to the contribution of factors which can be influenced or manipulated in the school context? (D) How important is the recent interest in cognitive and metacognitive factors and learner and learning strategies? (E) Which important methodological developments can be observed?
Verschillen Tussen Leerlingen ten Aanzien Van Woordverwerving en Leesstrategieen
Authors: Schouten-van Parreren Carolien
Published: March 2014

Within the larger framework of a project on Mixed Ability Teaching, a qualitative experiment was carried out with respect to the individual differences between pupils of very different ability ranges, when learning French. This experiment was meant to gain insight into the nature of the differences concerning vocabulary learning and reading strategies.
69 pupils (12-15 year) pupils of very different ability ranges (but being educated together) were presented with a variety of vocabulary learning and reading tasks. They worked individually or in pairs and were requested to think aloud. The following tasks were used: 1) while reading a story, guessing the meaning of unknown words from the context, 2) after having read a story, memorizing the meaning of unknown words by means of vocabulary cards, 3) intensive reading of a relatively difficult illustrated story, 4) recalling the meaning of new words incidentally acquired (or not), while reading a story, 5) doing an exercise, involving different reading strategies.
The analysis of the protocol records focused on the causes of the differences between weak and strong pupils. The differences which were found could be related to two relevant general strategies: guessing the meaning of an unknown word from the context and analyzing the word form of an unknown word. The main results were the following: 1) the attention of weak pupils tends to be exclusively drawn by one source of information; weak pupils are not able to integrate information from different sources (advance knowledge, text, word forms, context, illustrations, cues), 2) weak pupils take no account whatsoever of the sentence structure, 3) weak pupils have difficulties in generalizing from a new word to an already known word (in the target language or in the mother tongue). The article concludes with some implications for foreign language teaching.
Der Zusammenhang Von Muttersprache Und Zweit-Sprache Bei Der Sozialisation Von Migrantenkindern in Der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Authors: Baur Rupprecht S.
Published: March 2014

In the Federal Republic of Germany a discussion is going on about the role of teaching the mother tongue. This paper presents part of the data from a project presently carried out at the University of Essen (FRG). They consist of language tests (C-tests) in both the mother tongue of the students and German, as well as of a social survey investigating the students' attitude to school, the social situation and the language spoken at home, etc.
The sample was taken from three nationalities. 1200 Greek, Turkish and Yugoslavian students were tested (400 for each nationality) aged between 10 and 16 (5th. to 10th. grade in the German school system). The sample was grouped into sets of two grades (5th, 6th. 7th., 8th. and 9th andl0th grade in the German school system) in each nationality.
The language data confirm that supporting the mother tongue has no bad effects on the acquisition of the second language.
Lexicon En Grammatica
Authors: Bogaards Paul
Published: March 2014

The distinction between lexicon and grammar has long been seen as one between loose elements and rules, between building blocks and building principles. For that reason the lexicon was considered as scientifically less interesting. In the last few years however, the idea has grown that the lexicon has to be assigned a more central role in language study and that both aspects of language are more closely related than has often been thought. Syntacticians discover that much of what has been presented as "rule" gets stuck in numerous lexical particularities. Lexicographers spend much energy in explicit descriptions of the grammatical possibilities and impossibilities of every single lexical unit (word, word meaning, idiom etc.) In the field of Applied Linguistics, whether it concerns itself with SL/FL acquisition or with SL/FL processing the lexicon is playing a role of increasing importance.
This paper discusses some questions concerning the relationship between lexicon and grammar seen from these perspectives.
Vraag Naar Coherentie?
Authors: Stoop-Tokarski D.
Published: March 2014

Recent research in discourse analysis shows that coherence plays an essential role in understanding discourse. It is, therefore, interesting to investigate what position coherence occupies in language teaching and testing. This question was addressed in two ways: a survey of literature written by language teachers and testers. The purpose of this survey was to find literature about coherence. It was found that such literature was very scarce. The second way was an analysis of final examinations in English for HAVO and VWO. In this analysis particular attention was given to questions pertaining to text coherence: it was found that only 12% of the examination questions were questions of coherence. So it can be concluded that coherence doesn't play an important part in language teaching and testing.
Another question that was addressed in the article concerns the possibility of constructing a coherence test. To answer that question a test constructed at CITO (Dutch Institute for Educational Measurement),that was meant to test the understanding of coherence was examined in two ways. First a discourse analysis was made in order to find questions of coherence: 100% of the questions were questions of coherence. The second part of the research was empirical: 689 students were administered the discourse test. With these empirical data some hypotheses were formulated and tested.
Het Aanpassen Van Informatieve Schoolboekteksten In Groep Vijf Van Het Basisonderwijs
Authors: Wouters Mark
Published: March 2014

This article describes research which has focused on the level of difficulty of texts and questions as an explanation for the difference in text comprehension between non-native and native pupils. The degree to which text comprehension in native and non-native pupils could be facilitated by means of controlling texts and questions was investigated. From the results the following conclusions were drawn:
1) Non-native pupils scored significantly lower than native Dutch pupils in all tests that dealt with text comprehension;
2) When the test questions were controlled by changing a number of factors which supposedly made understanding more difficult, the scores of both non-native and native pupils improved significantly;
3) When the texts of the tests were rewitten, the non-native pupils improved in their scores and the native pupils did not;
4) When both the texts and questions were controlled, the results seemed to show that the non-native pupils had caught up for a great part where they were found to have "lagged behind".
Interactie In Interetnische Communicatie
Authors: Deen Jeanine
Published: March 2014

In communication between native (NS) and non-native (NNS) speakers problems of understanding may easily arise because the NNS do not have a complete knowledge of the rules and means of communication of the particular target language community. When a NNS indicates non-understanding the NS usually will adjust his or her language, and the interaction will be modified. Hatch (1978) and Long (1983) hypothesized that these adjustments will lead to an increase of comprehensible input for the NNS and thus to language acquisition.
The case study discussed in this article investigates how input is made comprehensible through negotiation of meaning in so-called clarification sequences. Two 'housing office' conversations that were videotaped and transcribed for the data collection of the European Science Foundation Project "Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants in Europe" (Perdue, 1984) were analyzed. The study is a follow-up on the 'Ways of Achieving Understanding' study (Bremer et al, 1988) executed as part of the ESF project.
Questions that were investigated were how Mohamed, a Moroccan speaker of Dutch, indicates understanding problems, how the native speaker tries to solve these problems and what the structure is of the clarification sequences. Furthermore, some attempt was made to analyze the kind of understanding problems Mohamed indicates and the degree of success the speakers have in negotiating understanding.
The results showed a basic structure for clarification sequences, starting with a trouble source, followed by a trouble indicator, trouble clarification, and ending with a main-line response connected to the trouble source. The trouble sources Mohamed indicated were mostly lexical problems. The way he indicated understanding problems was quite implicit. He either did not verbally react to a move of the NS or reacted with minimal unspecified requests, such as "hm?" or "what?". Therefore, the NSs did not receive specific feedback as to what the problem was. In spite of this, they used several strategies to clarify problems, such as reformulations, expansions and hypothesis forming. In addition, it was found that the negotiation of meaning process was quite successful: most understanding problems seemed to be solved that way.
ReferencesBremer K., Broeder P., Roberts C, Simonot M., Vasseur M.-T. (1988). Ways of Achieving Understanding: Communicating to Learn in a Second Language. Final Report Vol. I, ESF project, Strassbourg. Perdue, C. (Ed.) (1984). Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants. Newbury House, Rowley, Mass.
Neder-Engels Of Neder-Amerikaans?
Authors: van der Haagen Monique
Published: March 2014

Although the model of English pronunciation in Dutch schools is, and always has been, British English (commonly known as Received Pronunciation, RP), not only teachers, but also informed laymen notice that the pronunciation of learners seems to be more and more influenced by American English. An investigation into the nature and spread of this influence therefore seems in order. This paper discusses some of the preliminary results of a research project which aims to give an inventory and description of the influence of American English (General American, GA) on the pronunciation of 10 phonological variables, among which are /æ/ in words like classroom and wineglass, and flapped /t/ in words like pretty and meeting.
A second aim of the project is to find out to which the degree the American and British varieties are attractive to our population. Therefore a number of listening tests were administered:
- a preference test, in which subjects had to indicate which pronunciation of a lexical item they thought (a) best (i.e. confirm to the school norm) and (b) they would prefer to use themselves.
- an identification test, in which subjects had to indicate whether an item was pronounced in RP or in GA.
- a matched guise test consisting of 12 versions of the same story, read by 8 speakers, 4 of them in both varieties.
A preliminary inventory shows that in roughly 25% of all the pronunciations of single lexical items (word list style) we can speak of an 'American-like' pronunciaton. The variables that are pronounced most frequently GA-like are flapped /t/ in little, /æ/ in classroom, /a/ in hockey and postvocalic /r/ in morning. It also appears that RP is still the preferred variety on both the preference tests, although this preference decreases slightly when asked which pronunciation they would prefer to use themselves. Roughly 65% of the items was correctly identified as being RP or GA. Finally, the matched guise test showed a significantly high rating of GA female voices on all factors except for the factor 'school-norm'. RP males and females scored relatively high on this factor as well as on 'social status', but dropped considerably on the 'activity' factor and remained below the GA voices on 'personal affect'.
Derivationele Morfologie In Tweede-Taalverwerving
Authors: Lowie Wander
Published: March 2014

This article deals with the influence of a learner's native language in the acquisition of L2 derivational morphology. Do learners acquire morphologically complex words like 'learnable' and 'explanation' as unanalysed units or do they acquire and store the stems ('learn'; 'explain') and generate/analyse these forms by using word formation rules? A linguistic model of the lexicon which enables both direct retrieval and generation/analysis on the basis of word formation rules is applied to second language acquisition by distinguishing formal and semantic/syntactic rules. Based on a comparative description of English and Dutch in these terms, a small scale empirical investigation was set out. The results of this research indicate that the primary determinant of the analysability of morphologically complex words is transparency, which is defined from the learner's point of view and is dependent on all prior linguistic knowledge of the learner, including L1. Furthermore, the research indicates that semantic/syntactic similarities between the languages have a greater facilitating effect than formal similarities.
Vaktaal En Beroepsopleidingen
Authors: van Sebille W.M.J.
Published: March 2014

With respect to full employment migrants still are in a bad position. Despite positive attention for their position, the number of unemployed is very high.
One of the problems migrant course-members have to face during their vocational training, is the technical language. This is defined as the language which is used within a certain profession to communicate about the profession.
In this article I present the description of an investigation into the use of the technical language, used in textbooks for vocational training within institutes for apprenticeship training and further education. A detailed description is presented in "Een bus is een bus is een bus" (1989).
The investigation is based on three theories. The first one describes the relation between learning a second language and language as a communication process. An important aspect here is the "repertoire" the sender and the receiver must have in common in order to be able to communicate with each other. The second theory deals with concepts, their influence on the culture and by that, the assimilation of the data. In this context "concept" means all the meanings, pictures etc,, one can have when reading or hearing a word. The third one gives insight in the relation between the roles a language user has to play, the settings in which he or she has to play that role and the functions of the language activities. All three theories plays their part in vocational training where technical languages are used.
Technical language manifests itself in the lexicon (in general technical language, the domain language and in course instruction language) and on text level. Furthermore, technical language has a number of characteristics which can be summarized as "the economical principle". This leads among others to elliptical sentences, composed sentences, passive sentences and changing the word order by placing the clause with the most important information at the beginning of the sentence.
It was investigated whether and in which way technical language appears in textbook for learners and what the main problems are for migrant learners. The investigation showed that many texts are a source of problems, because they do not correspond with the knowledge level of the learner.
Vertaalwoordenlijst Op Het Gebied Van De Olie- En Gaswinning
Authors: de Jonge Marjan
Published: March 2014

The language of communication in the oil and gas industry is mainly English. This causes a communication problem for oil companies in countries where English is not the official language.
Although a large part of English oil terminology has now been translated into Dutch, a considerable part is still being used in the original English forms.
Under the authority of an oil company I compiled a basic bilingual wordlist for the oil and gas industry. Afterwards, it proved worthwhile to investigate to what extent this practical assignment fits in with the terminological knowledge of a translator.
The compilation process was divided into seven phases, namely:
1. Formulation of the preconditions
- target group
- type of the wordlist
- size (number of lemmas)
- compilation time
- budget
2. Definition of the field of study
By means of a number of oil and gas publications and handbooks, a classification of the field of study was made.
3. Collection / evaluation of the material
The wordlist was compiled on the basis of both bi- en monolingual publications and handbooks.
4. Selection
The lemmas were selected both on the basis of their frequency in the texts and the expertise of the translator/compiler.
5. Verification
The translations were verified by means of specialized dictionaries, handbooks, monolingual texts and lawbooks. Subsequently, the wordlist was divided into three catagories indicating the degree of reliability of the translation.
6. Lexical description
In this phase, the layout of the entry was defined.
7. Presentation
It was decided to present the entries in alpabetical order.
It proved that, in practice, the compilation process was slightly different from the hypothetical, theoretical process, due to certain restrictions. We concluded, however, that the compilation process fits in well with terminological theories, taking into account the compiler's background and the restrictions.
Verschillen in Taalgebruik Tussen Vrouwen en Mannen
Authors: Gerritsen Marinel , Brouwer Dédé , de Haan Dorien
Published: March 2014

The methods and techniques used in sociolinguistics have been continually improved in recent years. Yet the claims that have been made about differences of degree between the language used by women and that used by men, are mostly based on the introspection method.
This paper reports on a qualitative analysis of sex differences in language use by means of the observation method.
On the basis of 587 utterances produced in buying a train ticket at the Central Station in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) has been investigated.
vhether there is a statistically significant difference between women and men in certain aspects of their use of language which have been mentioned in the literature: the number of words to deal with a 8et task, diminutives9 civilities, forms of language expressing insecurity (repetitions, hesitations, sel f-corrections, requests for information), In addition to the independent variable of sex of speaker three other variables were introduced: sex of addressee, age of speaker (0-30, 35-60, 60+) and time of ticket purchase (rush hour or normal).The data were fed to the computer for processing according to programs of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. 2x2x2x3 ANOVAS (sex speaker ? sex adressee ? time of ticket purchase ? age speaker) were conducted to test the significance of the main effects and their interactions for all the dependent variables which were frequent enough to warrant further processing. The results indicate that there are few significant differences between the language used by women and that used by men in this particular situation, with regard to the variables mentioned above. As a consequence, this investigation has demonstrated once again that intuitions should be considered critically.
It is remarkable, however, that sex of addressee does affect almost all of the variables under consideration: all of the kind of utterances that women are characteristically supposed to use more often than men -utterances indicating insecurity and politeness - were used more often by women and men when speaking to the male ticket-seller. Consequently these results strongly suggest that anyone who wants to investigate language by means of interviews must take into account the fact that the kind of language used does not depend only on the informant, but just as much on the addressee.
Methodologische en Praktische Moeilijkheden bij Het Onderzoek Naar De Verwerving Van Het Nederlands Door Volwassen Buitenlanders
Authors: Hulstijn Jan H.
Published: March 2014

In the first and second section of this paper some methodological topics in the study of interlanguage (IL) and error analysis are discussed. The author adheres to Adjemian's point of view (1976): any interlanguage is a natural language and contains a linguistic system. Its systematicity is therefore given a priori. However, not all utterances of an IL speaker might be consistent: some rules of the system might be unstable over a certain period of time. Research would have to show what performance strategies (like simplification) influence the stability of the system, in other words in what way the consistency of the system is permeable.
In the third section a preliminary study is presented dealing with the topic of inconsistency in IL. The research question was: to what extent can the inconsistency in the learners' utterances be accounted for by distinguishing different kinds of performance? To nineteen adult foreigners in Holland, with 15 different mother tongues, all partici-pating in an intensive Dutch course for beginners, eight tests ^licitation procedures) were administered: two reproduction tests, four production tests and two "intuition tests" (see table I). Eight rules of Dutch syntax and morfology were tested, (table II). Results show that:
(a) if someone makes one or more errors with a particular rule in a reproduction test, he will make one or more errors with the same rule in a production test and an intuition test as well: the reverse is not true;
(b) if someone makes one or more errors with a particular rule in a production test, he will make one or more errors with the same rule in an intuition test as well; the reverse is not true;
(c) the overlap in errors/correct forms was greatest with both repro-duction tests. Of the production tests translation and the anagram test were almost equally representative for the four tests. Finally, there was no congruence between both "intuition tests", the sentence correc-tion test yielding consistently more errors (for all eight rules) than the multiple choice test.
Een Poging tot Beperking van Subjectiviteit bij de Beoordeling van Schrijfvaardigheid mvt
Authors: Melse Leijn
Published: March 2014

Test results should be determined as little as possible by chance factors. Such factors harm the reliability of results. In testing writing proficiency open-ended tasks may involve a variety of chance factors affecting assessment a.o. It is well-known that when a number of teachers rate the same written work, the outcomes tend to differ considerably from each other. The subjectivity showing up here also affects the assessment of modern foreign language writing proficiency in school-based exams. The use of different measures may be hard to rule out, but is unacceptable as a matter of principle. For this reason CITO has been making attempts to improve the agreement among raters of foreign language writing proficiency. Research has been done to find out if information offered to teachers concerning the severity, or otherwise, of their assessments enhanced inter-rater agreement. The subject of this investigation was based on the following argument: teachers are often unaware of how their assessments compare to those of colleagues. If there were a means enabling them to determine (independently and anonymously) whether they fall into the category of mild or severe assessors, this information might cause them to change their 'deviant' behaviour and aim at the mean. If many teachers were to calibrate their evaluation in this way, the objectivity of assessment might be improved.
In order to find out if such an effect occurs at all, a test was carried out in which 26 teachers rated 25 letters written by pupils (in German, French or English). They were asked to follow precise instructions. The results were reported back to them. After over a year had passed, the teachers were asked to rate the same letters once again following the same instructions as before. They were reminded of the results of the previous round (by such comments as: 'last time your assessments were pretty severe'). The inter-rater agreement turned out to be neither higher nor lower than the first time. The information about relative mildness or otherwise apparently had not had the desired effect. One explanation could be that, contrary to what had been hoped, teachers are not really able to adjust their rating. The fact that the results of raters in the 'average' group (who, of course, were not supposed to adjust their rating) showed quite some variation over the two rounds (the mean intra-rater agreement was .79) would seem to support this explanation.
Tekstplanning en Tekstproduktie
Authors: Janssen Daniël , Schilperoord Joost
Published: March 2014

In our article we describe the functions of so-called 'text plans1 in two different processes of text production: (1) dictating business letters and (2) writing governmental policy issue papers. Text plans are defined as: abstract, schematic representations of the text a writer/dictator wants to convey.
We look upon dictating business letters and writing policy issue papers as two writing tasks. In our article we explore the differences between the two tasks in terms of the constraints the dictator and the policy writer should meet. Our research makes clear that dictators strive for first-time-final versions and that planning the text is a necessary requirement for effective dictating. While dictating, the dictator follows the exact line of his plan. Writing policy issue papers, however, is mainly a collaborative writing task. Policy issue papers are written in groups which strive for internal consensus about the issues (and the text) at stake. Text plans are uses by policy writers to divide tasks, to guarantee cohesion between the different contributions and as the first negotiation object.
Geleide Revisie
Authors: Schuurs Uriel , van den Bergh Huub
Published: March 2014

From various studies there is evidence that revision tasks are helpful in the development of writing skills. In order to know more about the mental activities student-writers undertake while revising their own texts, we have made an analysis of 90 writing assignments written and revised by pupils of 12 years old. In an attempt to help pupils in the revision phase, we added 2 kinds of feedback at the sentence level:
- minimal feedback which merely indicates the sentence problem;
- diagnostical feedback which indicates a solution for the sentence problem.
The research concentrated on the question which kind of feedback had resulted in adequate revisions at the sentence level. Analysis showed that
- each kind of feedback was given equally frequent, regardless of the nature of sentence errors;
- opaque sentence errors were revised successfully more often than sophisticated sentence errors ( ρ < .01);
- minimal feedback led to more successful revisions than diagnostical feedback ( ρ < .01).
These results suggest that student-writers are not able to make use of diagnostical comments and that further research should be done in order to discover which kind of feedback is the most succesful at sentence level.
Effecten Van Computerondersteund Proces-Gericht Schrijfonderwijs
Authors: van der Geest Th.
Published: March 2014

In the period 1985-1990, software and written learning materials have been developed in the project Computer-assisted Writing Instruction, a research-and-development project of the University of Twente. The courseware was intended to serve as a prototype for writing instruction in which much attention is to be paid to text planning, before and during writing. In the experimental lessons students used a word processor and a planning support program as an aid for composing their texts.
An educational innovation, such as the use of the computer as a tool or approaching writing instruction in a process-oriented way, displays its effects on all levels in the instructional situation. One intends to influence the writing achievements of students positively, but at the same time the daily routine in classes changes, both for teacher and for students. Various effects of the experimental materials and the lessons realized with it, were studied in nine third grade classes of MAVO and HAVO (lower and higher general secondary education) and VWO (pre-university secondary education). A selection of results with regard to the effects on the writing achievements of students and with regard to changes in their writing processes are being presented.
From the study it appeared that students improved their writing achievements during the experimental course: they wrote better letters after the course than they did before. The writing processes of students who wrote a letter (supported by the computer program) also appeared to be changed. The required letter was planned at a higher text level after the course. However, for some of the participating students this change appeared to be immature.
The Two Faces of Language Ego
Authors: Guiora Alexander Z.
Published: March 2014

A fair amount of attention has been paid over the years to a unique domain in second language behavior, namely pronunciation. Pronunciation seems to be different from other domains, such as vocabulary, grammar, syntax and idiom. The difference lies in its intractability beyond a certain age. Most people, most of the time, in most circumstances will fail to acquire native pronunciation in a foreign language. Guiora has offered a psychological theory, a theory of inhibition, to account for this phenomenon (Guiora, 1991, 1992). This theory is based on the constructs of language ego and permeability of language ego boundaries. It can account, alone of the contending hypotheses, for both the extreme rigidity and relative flexibility of the pronunciation behavior.
The need arises now to develop a general theory that could also explain the reasons why other language domains, such as voca-bulary, syntax, grammar and idiom seem to be governed by rules different from the rules governing pronunciation. In this paper an attempt is made to formulate such a theory, going beyond the psychological theory of pronunciation, and extending it to all language behavior. And perhaps suggesting a theoretical relevance that may go beyond language behavior itself.
De Sociolinguïstiek In het Nederlandse Taalgebied Anno 1991
Authors: van Hout Roeland , Huls Erica , Verhallen-van Ling Marianne
Published: March 2014

This contribution discusses the state of affairs of sociolinguistics in the Dutch language area. The discussion is particularly based on the conference papers in the proceedings of the "First Conference on Sociolinguistics", which was organized in November 1991. This conference was meant to be the first one in a series of conferences to stimulate sociolinguistic research in the Dutch language area and to bring together sociolinguistic researchers from different areas. The contributions in this volume represent the plenary lectures from that conference.
In our overview two questions are addressed:
1. For which topics did the attention diminish over the last ten years and which topics seem to have gained importance? Is research into social vari-ability and the social context of language and language behaviour loosing its impact?
2. Are theoretical developments in sociolinguistics rather scattered and diffuse and is there hardly any theoretical progress in sociolinguistics?
De Sociolinguïstische Geschiedenis Van Het Negerhollands
Authors: den Besten Hans , Muysken Pieter
Published: March 2014

In this paper we describe a number of features of the history of Negerhollands (Creole Dutch), spoken on the Danish Antilles, later U.S. Virgin Islands, between around 1700 and 1900 (the last remaining speaker died recently). Special attention is paid to early history and demography, linguistic features of the creole (on the basis of a number of proverbs), a characterization of the type of Dutch that provided the lexical input for the language, and variation in the creole itself. The paper provides the framework in which much more detailed research, based on the analysis of 18th century manuscript sources, can be carried out in the near future.
Etnische Minderheden, Taaldiversiteit En Onderwijsbeleid
Authors: Extra Guus
Published: March 2014

The growing presence of ethnic minority groups in society is not a phenomenon that can only be observed in the Netherlands. It is estimated that in the year 2000 about one-third of the population below 35 years in urban Western Europe will have an immigrant background. Against this background, demographic trends in processes of immigration and the emergence of ethnic minority groups will be discussed, both from a European and national
perspective. Special attention will be paid to problems in defining and identifying ethnic minority groups in the Netherlands, and to the neglected role of the language factor in these issues.
As a follow-up of this target group discussion, the focus will be on major characteristics of Dutch policies regarding the education of ethnic minority groups. Both in primary and secondary education, a two-track approach can be observed. Special educational arrangements are made for the teaching of Dutch as a second language and the teaching of ethnic community languages. An outline of this two-track approach will be presented, along with recent research evidence and policy initiatives. Moreover, ideas will be presented for a re-thinking of some basic pre-conceptions in these particular domains of educational policy.
Sociolinguïstiek En Dialectologie
Authors: Taeldeman Johan
Published: March 2014

In this confrontative article I take stock of what socioiinguistics and dialec-tology (= dialect geography), in spite of (or thanks to?) their own focus and their own theoretical underpinnings, have contributed to the study of language change. This confrontation consists of two parts: First (4.1.) I deal with those aspects where socioiinguistics has contributed substantially to the exploration of language change and at the same time has had a renewing influence on dialectology:
1) Sociolinguists have started measuring the functional/communicative strength of linguistic varieties that in a certain area may supply competing variants.
2) By all kinds of micro-research into linguistic variation in correlation with social and situational factors socioiinguistics has drawn a much more refined picture of the process of language change.
3) Socioiinguistics has reintroduced attention to the psychological dimension of language change ( _ inquiries into the attitudes towards compet-ing varieties and variants and into the awareness of social differentiation in language).
In a second part (4.2.) I deal with those aspects where the contribution of dialectology has been more substantial and where socioiinguistics urgently needs some broadening:
1) In general dialectologists have better recognized that linguistic varia-tion (as a random indication of language change) is also embedded in the systemic dimension of language. This prevents the investigation of (linguistic) variety for variety's sake.
2) Dialectology permanently instructs sociolinguists that linguistic variation (and hence language change) also occurs along a spa-tial/geographical dimension.
3) The dialogist's traditional tool, the dialect map with the so often (unjustly) abused isogloss, provides the socioiinguistics with lots of interesting instructions where as to catch linguistic change in progress.
In general both disciplines display such a delicious complementarity that (sterile) discussions about their mutual demarcation should urgently be replaced by a thorough examination of each other's methods and findings.
Kennis En Inferenties Bij Het Lezen Van Tekst
Authors: Vonk Wietske
Published: March 2014

When readers understand a text they construct a mental representation of the text. This text representation contains not only the information that is explicitly expressed in the text, but also information that is inferred by the readers during reading. A text representation can be described in terms of relations between the elements in the representation, but also in terms of relations of the representation with (a model of) the world. For example, readers can determine whether a particular sentence is logically consistent with the text, as well as whether it is true or false, whether it is plausible or possible, or whether it is completely new for her or him.
The distinction between relations within the structure of the text representation and relations that refer to the world has hardly ever been made in empirical research on inferences. In general inferences have been investigated from the point of view of their contribution to the coherence of the representation. The consequence is that the question whether inferences are made during reading has generally been answered in terms of the internal coherence of the representation: Inferences that contribute to the coherence of the representation are made during reading, other inferences are not.
The central question in the present research is to what extent inference processes are determined by the relations of the inferences with a model of the world and, accordingly, to what extent inference processes are determined by the reader's knowledge of the world. Experiments are discussed on inferences that contribute to the coherence of the representation and, accordingly, are supposed to be made during reading. In this research the knowledge of the reader with respect to the topic of the text was varied by having expert economists and non-experts reading texts on economics. The results indicate that the prevalent conclusion with respect to inferences is an overgeneralisation. It was demonstrated that inference processes are controlled by the reader's knowledge.