Scientific Paper. "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today" Julian Brandt

Transcription

1 Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today" winter-semester 2010/2011 by Julian Brandt English-Speaking-Cultures and Political Science 3 rd Semester Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 1

2 Remarks after having received feedback on the paper: I should have taken more care of balancing my participant groups. More people would also have supported my survey. Furthermore my questions are limited in number, and do not really cover any clear range from mere reproduction (comprehension) to more advanced content inferences. The gender factor is mentioned but never motivated (except for citing a reference) or discussed. Also, issues such as change in language use or any other new insights to be gained from my study (concerning principles of communication) are missing. Nevertheless I hope that some people find this scientific paper interesting or even useful and enjoy reading it. Julian Brandt, 06. July 2011 Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 2

3 Abstract This scientific paper focuses on skills of understanding a Low Saxon text of people from Bremen and the area around it (i.e. Lower Saxony). My investigation will focus on the difference of the skill level of young people (18 to 25 years) in comparison to older people (above 50 years). In accordance to previous surveys and scientific research, my findings will reveal that older people who grew up in and around Bremen do understand the text better than younger ones. Furthermore I will put an emphasis on the factor of male and female sex with regards to the understanding of Low Saxon. Table of Contents 1 Introduction (State of the Art) p Study p Aims and Method p Data p Results + Explanation p Discussion p Conclusion p References p Translations p. 13 Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 3

4 (1) Introduction (State of the Art) My topic for this scientific paper will be the investigation of people's competence in Low Saxon language in and around Bremen, i.e. in Lower Saxony. It is interesting, because during the time of the Hanse (between the 12 th and 17 th Century) Low Saxon was the Lingua Franca for the members of this trade union (including Bremen) and thus for its inhabitants. It remains as a language in use until today 1. Also my personal family environment features some Low Saxon and I always love to listen to the sound of the language. Researchers have found out that there seems to be a process of loss in understanding Low Saxon from generation to generation 2 3. In 1984 a survey by the GETAS ( Gesellschaft für angewandte Sozialpsychologie in Bremen) showed that older people in Lower Saxony and Bremen tend to speak and understand Low Saxon better than younger ones 4. The same trend is likely to be the case for all federal-states of North Germany 5. Another interesting factor revealed by the GETAS survey made clear that men can speak and understand Low Saxon in contrast to women 6. Therefore, my research question will be about the fact whether a loss in understanding is true for Bremen and the the area around it (Lower Saxony). Thus my hypothesis is the following: Older people (above the age of 50) who grew up in and around Bremen (meaning in Lower Saxony) will understand a text in local Low Saxon better than young people (between the age of 18 and 25) of the same area. 1 Speckmann 1991: 39ff 2 Föllner Lindow and Schuppenhauer 1975: 55ff 4 Stellmacher 1987: Windzio 2008: 6 6 Stellmacher 1987: 97 Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 4

5 (2) Study 2.1 Aims and Method In order to test the understanding of a Low Saxon text, I chose to take a news article in Low Saxon by a local news-website of a radio station in Bremen, called Radio Bremen. This article is exclusively designed for listeners from Bremen and thus it seems best suitable for my purpose. I left out one word of the article, which was "junge before the word Fru in line six, because I think that it would have made the answer of question 2 too obvious and easy. This is the news article's text: (for a translation see page 12) Staatsanwalt hett Baas vun een Huus för junge Lüüd op 'n Kieker Melle: En Staatsanwalt will ruutfinnen, wat de Baas vun een privaat Huus, wo junge Lüüd egens Hölp finnen schüllt, Schuld op sik laden hett. De jungen Lüüd smieten den achtunföfftig Johr oolt Mann vör, he hett de jungen Minschen, de he Schuul geven schull, Gewalt andohn un se versehrt. En Spreker vun de Gendarms sää jo, dat is richtig. Dat lett, de Schoolmester hett 'n achteihn Johr oolt Fru schüddelt, böös wruckhalst un oplest dwungen, dat se Pillen sluckt, op dat se still warrt. Dat Landsamt för junge Lüüd in Neddersassen harr ditt Huus in Melle in de verleden Tiet al 'n paar Maal op 'n Kieker. Bi dat Amt sään se jümmer wedder, jichtenseen Leegheit, nee, de hebbt se dor betto nich in de Künn kregen kunnt. 7 This article was printed on the top of a DIN-A4 sheet of paper with five questions below the text. Those questions should ensure the understanding of the text by asking different facts and paraphrasing of the text. In four of the questions there are two options to choose from (question 1, 2, 3 and 5) and in question 4 there are three possibilities. For each question only one answer is correct. Those questions were asked in High German, to be sure that the participants concentrate their reading competence of Low Saxon on the article and not on the questions. In the end, three questions that are separated from the first five questions by a black line, ask about the person's personal identity with regards to having grown up in Bremen or Lower 7 Radio Bremen Website 2011, last accessed on 19 th January 2011, exact weblink under "References" Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 5

6 Saxony. When this question was being answered Nein (i.e. no), the filled-out survey form would be excluded from the analysis. I also focus on the issue of the person's sex to investigate if the same patterns occur as in the GETAS survey, mentioned in the introduction. The last question about the age is the most important factor; it had to be between 18 and 25 or above 50. Due to a short amount of time, I limited the number of participants to at least ten of each group, but more participants were welcome. A further condition for the participants was that each one has a maximum of five minutes to complete the survey-form and handing it back to me. Given this circumstance I wanted to ensure that everyone had the same amount of time and no one had an advantage of being able to investigate the text and thinking about every word. Those are the questions as they appeared on the survey form: (for a translation see page 12) 1) Dem 58jährigen Mann wird vorgeworfen eine Frau zu etwas gegen ihren Willen gezwungen zu haben. a. Ja o b. Nein o 2) Wie alt ist die Frau? a. 80 o b. 18 o 3) Laut dem Amt hat sich das Haus bisher noch nie etwas zu schulden kommen lassen. a. Ja o b. Nein o 4) Es handelt sich bei dem Haus um eine Einrichtung für... a. Senioren o b. Jugendliche o c. Behinderte o 5) Es gibt bereits sichere Beweise für etwaige Misshandlungen. Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 6

7 a. Ja o b. Nein o Fragen zu Ihrer Person Sind Sie in Bremen und / oder umzu in Niedersachsen aufgewachsen? Ja o Nein o Ihr Geschlecht: Ihr Alter: When finding a suitable and willing participant, I usually sat together with him or her in a quiet atmosphere and explained what was going to happen next. At first, I said that there will be a short news article in Low Saxon. Then five questions in High German will follow and have to be answered. Each of them can only be answered with one tick. In the end there will be three questions on the person's personal background. My last instruction was that they will have a maximum of five minutes to fill out the form. After this brief instruction they could start to read and fill out the form. The correct answers were the following; in brackets the required phrase to understand for being able to deliver the correct answer: 1) a. Ja ( Dat lett, de Schoolmester hett 'n achteihn Johr oolt Fru schüddelt, böös wruckhalst un oplest dwungen, dat se Pillen sluckt, op dat se still warrt. ) 2) b. 18 ( achteihn Johr oolt Fru ) 3) a. Ja ( Bi dat Amt sään se jümmer wedder, jichtenseen Leegheit, nee, de hebbt se dor betto nich in de Künn kregen kunnt. ) 4) b. Jugendliche ( wo junge Lüüd egens Hölp finnen schüllt ) 5) b. Nein ( En Staatsanwalt will ruutfinnen ) Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 7

8 2.2 Data These are my results. here you can see bold numbers that indicate the age group's percentage of correct answers, while the non-bold numbers show the amount of right answers out of a maximum score of five per participant. (for example 3 means that three of the five questions were answered correctly by this participant) mean value of all participants All Men Women Correct answers in % 77,27 70,00 78,75 Table 1 Age All Men Women Correct answers in % 70,91 53,33 77,50 Table 2 Age 50+ All Men Women Correct answers in % 83,64 86,67 80,00 Table 3 Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 8

9 2.3 Results + Explanation As we can see in Table 1 the overall percentage of correct answers for both age groups (i.e. age and 50+) and both sexes (i.e. men and women) is 77,27%. The men's overall percentage for both age groups is at 70%. The women's overall percentage of correct answers is even higher at 78,75%. Focusing on the age group of year old people, overall 70,91% of the answers are correct (Table 2). For the male sex 53,33% of the answers are correct in contrast to 77,50% of the female sex. This shows that women of that age group seem to understand the text in Low Saxon better than men of the same age group do. The third table for the age group of people above the age of 50 reveals the following: The overall percentage of correct answers is 83,64% (Table 3). Men answered 86,67% of the asked questions on the form correctly. Last but not least women above the age of 50 reached a percentage of 80%. In contrast to the other age group, men are more likely to understand the text correctly than women over 50 years of age. Counting all participants, we can see that 22 people (9 men and 13 women) took part in the survey. On the one hand, there were eight women in the age group of and five women above 50+. On the other hand three men are part of the age group and six men of the 50+ age group. That is a fact I have to consider in my discussion of the results, because women outnumber men to some extend and alter the results of the mean value for all participants. All of the participants ticked the answer Ja below the question concerning if they grew up in or around Bremen, thus Lower Saxony. By this I am able to consider all filled-out forms. In conclusion my hypothesis has been proven. People from and around Bremen above the age of 50 do understand the text better than people between 18 and 25 years. (For people above 50 years the percentage is at 83,64% vs. the younger persons between 18 and 25 at 70,91%) Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 9

10 (3) Discussion With regards to the introduction, I can say that the main point of a measurable loss of understanding Low Saxon across the generations of previous research on this topic can be confirmed. In opposition to other people's research my findings support the competence of women in contrast to men. As stated before, Stellmacher found out that men tend to understand Low Saxon better than women do. However my results show that women (78,75%) are being able to understand and answer - at least my testing-text - better than men do (70%) (see Table 1). But we have to consider that there are only a few percentage points of difference and women outnumber men in my research (nine men, thirteen women). Now I would like to discuss possible factors that could have influenced the results and altered them. The main problem is the fact that I have too few cases, meaning that there are too few people I asked. This is unfortunate due to the relatively small time for my research. The choice of the age groups is also a considerable fact and maybe if I took age groups from 18 to 40 and the other one at about 70+, there would have been completely different results to the present ones. Furthermore my choice of the questions might have been problematic in different means. For example the circumstance that the questions are being asked in High German could irritate the participants. Another example are the facts being asked they might have been probably too easy or too hard to get from the text. The results could also be influenced by some participant's guessing. Moreover the time limit of five minutes is altering the results, because I think that there would have been more correct answers if the participants had more time. Another reason that might have influenced some people's result is that they already knew the article's topic in advance from another source and could remember the happenings. Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 10

11 Additionally the environmental factors during filling out the form probably affect the results, because the reader could either be in a hurry or relaxed and thus take the text less or more serious. Besides, the article represents only one of the various ways to write Low Saxon, because there is no fixed orthography and consequently even if a participant may understand Low Saxon, this particular text could have been a challenge for him or her. Moreover spelling mistakes could be included in the text. I would like to show two more factors that might have lead to influenced results. The first one is the participant's exact environment of growing up, meaning that they could have grown up in a town or village. This influences their skill of understanding Low Saxon as shown in the research of Stellmacher 8. The other factor is the participant s social background and education, which was also shown to be influencing the skill level of understanding Low Saxon in the work of Stellmacher 9. (4) Conclusion To give a short suggestion for further work in that area, I would like to pay attention to my remarks about the above-mentioned factors that might have changed the results in the discussion section of this scientific paper. Moreover the aspect of my results that women are being able to understand Low Saxon better than men do, should be further investigated, because it either might simply be the case today (but if so: why?) or my previously discussed problem of the men-womenratio has to be solved (see Table 2 and Table 3). Finally as a conclusion we can see that my hypothesis has been proven, in accordance to the other scientific researchers and their works I named as examples and background in the introduction. This means that older people above the age of 50 who grew up in and around Bremen (meaning in Lower Saxony) do understand a text in local Low Saxon better than young people between the age of 18 and 25 of the same area. 8 Stellmacher 1987: Stellmacher 1987: Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 11

12 (5) References (in alphabetical order) Föllner, U. (1995), Untersuchungen zum Niederdeutschen in Sachsen-Anhalt. Erste Ergebnisse eines Forschungsprojektes der Arbeitsstelle Niederdeutsch an der Otto-von-Guericke-Universität in Magdeburg, Schriftenreihe der Arbeitsstelle Niederdeutsch, Heft 1, Oschersleben Lindow, W. And Schuppenhauer, C. (ed.) (1975), Schriften des Insituts für Niederdeutsche Sprache, Reihe: Dokumentation Nr. 6, Verlag Schuster, Leer, page 55ff Speckmann, Rolf (1991), Niederdeutsch morgen: Perspektiven in Europa ; Beiträge zum Kongress des Instituts für Niederdeutsche Sprache, Lüneburg, , Verlag Schuster, Leer, page 39ff Stellmacher, D. (1987), Schriften des Instituts für niederdeutsche Sprache. Reihe: Dokumentation; 14, Wer spricht platt? Zur Lage des Niederdeutschen heute. Eine kurzgefaßte Bestandsaufnahme, Verlag Schuster, Leer, pages and 95 (d1), 97 (d2), (d3), (d4) Windzio, M. (2008), Plattdeutsch im 21. Jahrhundert: Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven, Verlag Schuster, Leer, page 6 ast accessed on 19 th January 2011 Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 12

13 Translations (by the author of this paper) News article (page 4) Public prosecutor observes boss of a youth house Melle: A public prosecutor wants to find out if the boss of a private youth house, where young people should find help, would be guilty. The teenagers accuse the 58year-old man, who should have provided with shelter, of having threatened to use violence and hurt them. A police-speaker confirmed this. Obviously the accused boss shook, strangled and forced a 18year-old woman to swallow sedative pills for silencing her. The district administration for youth in Lower Saxony said to already have observed this facility in Melle for a longer period. At the administration they always say again that this kind of nastiness has never occurred at this youth house. Questions (page 5 and 6) 1) The 58year-old man is being accused of having forced the woman to do something against her will. a. Yes b. No 2) How old is the woman? a. 80 b. 18 3) According to the district administration the house has never been accused for anything. a. Yes b. No 4) The house is an organization for... a. seniors b. Young persons c. physically disabled people 5) There is a sure proof for any mistreatment. a. Yes b. No Questions to your person Are you grown up in Bremen and / or around it in Lower Saxony? Yes No Your sex: Your age: Scientific Paper "Low Saxon in and around Bremen Today", Julian Brandt, February 2011 page 13