Discovering the Linguistic Landscape of Music: An Investigation into Topic Variety between Songs Written in First and Second Language.

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2023-06-23

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en

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This study analysed the effect of first and second language use on topic variety in songs. In this way, it researches if an artist sings about different topics when writing in a second language. Six groups of songs were formed based on language, genre and nationality of the artist. Subsequently, all six groups' 100 most used content words were labelled as belonging to a topic based on the UCREL semantic analysis system. These categorizations have been compared to make a statement about the topic variety. Results showed that the Dutch group differed significantly from both English groups. Therefore the conclusion can be made that Dutch songs written by Dutch speakers differ in topic variety from English songs in general, although this may not necessarily be caused by first or second language use. However, for L1 and L2 speakers of English, first and second language use had no influence on songwriting.

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Faculteit der Letteren