Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing. Jaargang 29

[p. 95]

Abstracts Volume 29 no.1 2007

Carel Jansen, Jos van Baal en Eefje Bouwmans
Angst in voorlichtingsteksten. Een replicatieonderzoek naar de effecten van afstemming van fear appeals over HIV/AIDS op de culturele oriëntatie van de lezers

ABSTRACT: In a replication of an experiment reported in Murray-Johnson et al. (2001) two public information texts including fear appeals aimed at AIDS prevention were evaluated by participants from the Netherlands (n=147), Spain (n=109) and South Africa (n=179; varying ethnical backgrounds). Based on Murray-Johnson et al. (2001) interaction effects were expected of target of threat (family or individual) in the fear appeal message, and cultural orientation (collectivistic or individualistic) of the readers. However, none of the predicted effects occurred; the outcomes of the earlier experiment that was carried out in Taiwan and the USA could not be replicated. Because of this, and also because of some flaws in the experiment presented in Murray-Johnson et al. (2001) it seems premature to claim, as they do, that it is important to take cultural orientation into account when developing fear appeal messages. The results of this replication study do show, however, that fear appeal messages in HIV/AIDS communication can play a role in influencing the readers' behavioral intentions.

KEYWORDS: Fear Appeals, Public Information Texts, HIV/AIDS

Gerard Verhoeven
Argumentatie over spellingveranderingen

ABSTRACT: In 2005 a new edition of the spelling dictionary for Dutch was published, replacing the 1995 edition. This new edition gave rise to a large amount of discussion, especially in Dutch newspapers. While some contributors to the discussion defended the new spelling, the majority opposed it. The most important argument against the new spelling was that, although the intention of the new dictionary was only to add new words and to correct mistakes, but not to change any of the spelling rules, nevertheless five minor rules had been slightly changed and one new rule had been formulated. The study group responsible for the new edition denied that rules had been changed. This paper discusses these arguments and many others describing and evaluating them against the background of the general demands a spelling system has to satisfy. Also the new systems itself is evaluated in comparison with the 1995 spelling. A new policy for the edition planned for 2015 is mapped out.

KEYWORDS: Dutch Spelling, Spelling Rules

[p. 96]

Sanne van 't Hof
The interviewer as recipient
Response tokens in standardized survey interviews

ABSTRACT: Interviewers in Dutch standardised survey interviews frequently use the response token ‘ja’ (‘yes’) and its negative equivalent ‘nee’ (‘no’). This article describes the different functions ‘ja’ performs in interaction: as acknowledgement of something that does not contain an answer; as receipt/continuer after an answer in a series of answers; as receipt token closing off an expanded question-answer sequence; and in third position of the final question-answer sequence in a series of questions. Many research agencies accept the use of this response token and consider it neutral.

I will show that acknowledgement tokens and receipt tokens, located in the same sequential position, can be distinguished by their prosodic features. Receipt tokens are soft with rising pitch, while acknowledge-ments token are loud with falling pitch. Respondents adjust their answering behaviour to the different actions these tokens perform.

KEYWORDS: Conversation Analysis, Response Tokens, Prosody, Survey Interviews, Recipient Behaviour, Interaction

Joost Schilperoord
Oote
Retorische schema's (en tropen) in tekst en beeld

ABSTRACT: An important issue in research on visual figures of rhetoric is whether systems of classifying verbal figures suffice to analyze and classify visual rhetoric as well. Recently, it is proposed (Phillips & McQuarrie 2004) that visual rhetoric requires its own system, and that the well known distinction between schemes and tropes is non-existent in the visual mode. Verbal rhetorical schemes operate at formal linguistic levels like phonology. Tropes on the other hand are located at the semantic level. Due to the iconic nature of images, there can be no such thing as a visual scheme. This paper argues that the visual mode can also be characterized in terms of formal categories (perspective, spatial orientation, and the like), and that many figures of visual rhetoric can be classified accordingly. An analytical model is proposed that distinguishes perceptual and conceptual figures of visual rhetoric, which are based on categories that are analoguous to linguistic formal/perceptual and semantic/conceptual categories in language. One of the main conclusions is that the scheme-trope distinction also holds within the visual domain.

KEY WORDS:

Rhetorical figures, Visual rhetoric, Scheme/ trope distinction, Gestalts, Advertisement