Johanneke Caspers is University Lecturer at the Centre for Linguistics since 2003. She teaches courses at the department of Dutch Studies and in the Minor Second Language Acquisition. In addition, she supervises graduating students with interest in second language acquistion and/or phonetics and she has been involved as co-supervisor in a number of PhD projects in the same fields. Her research interests concentrate on spoken language, in particular sentence melody. In 2024 the NWO-project ‘Who’s next?’ has started, where she and a postdoc will investigate the role of boundary tones in the turn-taking system of Dutch.

More information about Johanneke Caspers

Fields of interest

• Prosody (involving speech aspects such as pitch accents, boundary tones, sentence intonation, word stress and tone).
• The acquisition of prosody by second language learners.

Research

My current research focuses on the role of prosody (in particular final boundary tones) in the turn-taking system of Dutch. I am the supervisor of the project, working with a postdoctoral researcher and a research assistant.

Grants and awards

• NWO-project #300-75-001, 'The meaning of melodic elements in Dutch', April 1995 - March 1999.
• NWO-project #355-75-002, 'The melody of conversation, The function of melodic elements in Dutch Dialogues', August 1999 - December 2004.
• NWO-project SSH Open Competition M 2022 #406.22.CTW.004, 'Who’s next? The role of speech melody in the turn-taking system of Dutch', Januari 2024 - December 2026.

Curriculum vitae

I studied Linguistics and Phonetics at Leiden University and wrote a MA thesis on co-articulation. After a year of teaching Dutch as a second language I was employed as a PhD student by NWO. I defended my thesis entitled ‘Pitch movements under time pressure’ in 1994. A postdoctoral research project on the meaning of melodic elements in Dutch started in 1995, and was followed by a second postdoctoral research project on the function of melodic elements in Dutch dialogue. In 2003 I was appointed lecturer at the department of Dutch Studies, where I teach linguistics and second language acquisition. In 2024 the NWO-project ‘Who’s next?’ has started, where a postdoc and I will investigate the role of boundary tones in the turn-taking system of Dutch.

Key publications

•  Zou, T., J. Caspers & Y. Chen (2022) Perception of different tone contrasts at sub-lexical and lexical levels by Dutch Learners of Mandarin Chinese. Frontiers in Psychology. 13:891756.
• Caspers, J. & K. Horłoza (2012) 'Intelligibility of non-natively produced Dutch words: Interaction between segmental and suprasegmental errors.'  Phonetica 69, 94-107.
• Caspers, J. & A. van Santen (2006) 'Nederlands uit Franse en Chinese mond, Invloed van T1 op de plaatsing van klemtoon in Nederlands als tweede taal?'  Nederlandse Taalkunde 11, 289-318.
• Caspers, J. (2003) 'Local speech melody as a limiting factor in the turn-taking system in Dutch.'  Journal of Phonetics 31, 251-276.
• Caspers, J. (1998) 'Who’s next? The melodic marking of question versus continuation in Dutch.'  Language and Speech 41, 375-398.

Publications