Frisian–Dutch bilingualism offers a rare opportunity to examine how language identity shapes cognition, social evaluation, and communication across human and A.I. contexts. Despite extensive work on bilingual processing and code-switching, no research has investigated how Frisian–Dutch language identity (Joseph, 2006) and language dominance influence production, perception, and interaction in ways that affect language vitality. This PhD project addresses this gap through a three-part, human-centric investigation of how speaker identity operates across the full spectrum of bilingualism and human-machine perception/interaction:

Study 1 – Switche – examines how language dominance and language identity shape cognition. This will involve testing Frisian-Dutch bilinguals in a language switching picture naming task (PNT) with cognate and non-cognate words.

Study 2 – Harkje – investigates how language dominance and identity shape perception. Drawing from sociolinguistic research on accent perception, Frisian speakers will evaluate stimuli – human baseline recordings (Dutch native, Frisian native) and matched synthetic voices (Dutch synthetic, Frisian synthetic) – using measures such as authenticity, comprehensibility, sociability, trustworthiness, and competence (Hendriks et al., 2023).

Study 3 – Prate – explores how language dominance and identity shape real-time interaction. This portion of the study will involve interactions with a distinctly “Frisian” robot (e.g., one that produces sarcastic and/or local speech/dialectal patterns), a monolingual Dutch robot, and a Frisian–Dutch code-switching robot.

Together, these three studies seek to advance a unified claim: language identity is the mechanism through which bilingual speakers navigate production, perception, and interaction. Accordingly, understanding this mechanism is essential in developing A.I. and language technologies that resonate with a diverse array of speakers, providing a framework to ensure language vitality in the digital era.

Sources:

​​Hendriks, B., van Meurs, F., & Usmany, N. (2023). The effects of lecturers’ non-native accent strength in English on intelligibility and attitudinal evaluations by native and non-native English students. Language Teaching Research, 27(6), 1378–1407. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820983145

Joseph, J. E. (2006). Identity and language. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (2nd ed., pp. 486–492). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/01283-9