When a person is in a state of distress or fear, that person is usually calmed down using reassuring words, spoken in a soothing tone. This is done fromm the moment we are born, so we are used to this. Some scientists claim this has mostly to do with the tone, intonation and inflection of the spoken text, and not the words themselves. In this project, the question is asked whether it matters if the person that needs reassuring knows the language in which is reassured or not.
In asking this question, we are not paying attention to the fact that languages differ not only in words, but also in sounds. What I want to do with this knowledge, I do not yet know. I could do two things: first, I could try to use a testing language which is of a similar sound-type or language family (French-Spanish, Dutch-German etc.). Second, I could also try to choose the language in such a way that the focus difference is on the sounds, and that there is no obvious correlation between languages (English-Swahili, Dutch-Mandarin etc.). This second option is easier to control, and as it is less probable that people know anything of the other language, there is less interference from background knowledge. I think it more probable that people be calmed by a known language than an alien one, because when in a state of distress people tend to long for something familiar.
As a start, a group of testsubjects will have to be brought into a state of distress. This could be done, for example, by telling them about violent crimes of the past, or of (fictive) threats towards them. The effect should be easily verifiable, for example by using an EEG or another type of brainscan. Next, the subjects should be divided into two groups, the ‘local’ group and the test group. The text and intonation used to calm the subjects should be identical in both groups. In trying to calm the subjects down, only a direct translation from the original text should be used. Also, all the participants should be unfamiliar with the testing language, which should be the same in all cases. As the subjects are being calmed, the same brainscan should be made so differences can be noted. After noting all, the subjects should answer a questionnaire describing how soothed they felt by the soothing session. These results should be analysed and compared, after which it is possible to draw a conclusion to the reasearch question.
reflectiesonderzoeksmethodologie 