Exploring the Lexical Richness of English Song Lyrics Written by Dutch Artists: A Study of Cross-Linguistic Differences in Language Usage.
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2023-06-23
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en
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Language serves as a crucial medium for communication and artistic expression, with song lyrics being a powerful form of conveying emotions and ideas. English, being a widely adopted global language, holds significance in music as well. This thesis strives to fill the scientific gap in the literature by examining the cross-linguistic differences between native English speakers and Dutch speakers who use English as their second language, with a specific focus on the evolving level of English language proficiency in the Netherlands. The materials for analysis consist of pop song lyrics written by singer-songwriters from the Netherlands, the UK, and the US, collected from various databases and transcribed if necessary. The lexical richness of the songs is assessed using measures such as vocabulary density and lexical sophistication. The results reveal no significant difference in vocabulary density. However, the analysis did uncover significant differences in both aspects of vocabulary sophistication. In summary, the findings of this study indicate that while vocabulary density may not differ significantly, there are discernible discrepancies in terms of lexical sophistication between native English speakers and Dutch speakers when i
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