Johan De Caluwe

Tussentaal wordt omgangstaal in Vlaanderen

Can the language of young people in Flanders tell us something about the future look and sound of Dutch in Flanders? To answer that question we start from the results of recent research on the informal language of people between 18 and 24 years old. The recordings used are part of the Corpus Gesproken Nederlands (CGN – Corpus of Spoken Dutch). When asked to hold an informal conversation in standard Dutch, most young people in Flanders will not use standard Dutch, but an intermediate variety between dialect and standard Dutch, the so-called tussentaal (literally: language-in-between). In the eyes of the propagators of the official language policy in Flanders this intermediate variety is unacceptable; people should either use dialect or standard Dutch, but not a mixture of both. In the eyes of the young people the tussentaal is no less than their mother tongue, and perfectly fit for all types of supra-regional informal communication. If urged to use standard Dutch, as with the CGN recordings, they will make a few adjustments – lexical, phonological, morpho-syntactical – to their colloquial speech, but they will not switch to the standard code. This behaviour may be very informative when speculating about the status of Dutch in Flanders. However, if we want to know whether standard Dutch still has a future as a spoken language in Flanders, we need to collect more and better data on the linguistic perception and attitudes of the younger generations in Flanders.

Eliminating social inequality by reinforcing standard language ideology? Language policy for Dutch in Flemish schools

Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, is experiencing growing intra- and interlingual diversity. On the intralingual level, Tussentaal (‘in-between-language’) has emerged as a cluster of intermediate varieties between the Flemish dialects and Standard Dutch, gradually becoming the colloquial language. At the same time, Flanders is encountering increasing numbers of immigrants and their languages. This paper analyses the way Flemish language-in-education policy deals with perceived problems of substandardisation and multilingualism, in order to create equal opportunities for all pupils, regardless of their native language or social background. Both the policy and the measures it proposes are strongly influenced by different, yet intertwined ideologies of standardisation and monolingualism. By propagating Standard Dutch as the only acceptable language and by denying all forms of language diversity, Flemish language-in-education policy not only fails to create equal opportunities, but also reinforces ideologies that maintain inequality. Instead, language policy should be open towards language diversity, taking the role of teachers in forming and implementing policies into consideration.

'Nederland en Vlaanderen: (a)symmetrisch pluricentrisme in taal en cultuur

Dutch is a pluricentric language with Dutch Dutch as the dominant variety and Belgian Dutch in the non-dominant position. In discussions on the pluricentrism of Dutch there is a tendency to focus on the differences or similarities in grammar, pronunciation or lexicon. We claim that in order to determine the status of (non-)dominant varieties, exploring purely linguistic standards is necessary but not sufficient, and that we must take into account the linguistic and cultural organisation of the language communities involved. Therefore we will investigate how markets for language-related products and services are organised both in Flanders and the Netherlands. Both regions have their own newspapers, magazines, radio and television market, et cetera. They also have their own language-related institutions and academies. However, since 1980 the Dutch Language Union (DLU), a binational organisation, has stimulated cooperation between the Netherlands and Flanders (and recently also Suriname) in the domains of Dutch language, literature and education. This has led to highly symmetrical forms of cooperation in a wide variety of projects. In recent years however, the Dutch-Flemish symmetry has come under serious pressure. With the financial support of the Dutch Science Organisation (NWO), new norm-setting projects for Dutch are being launched without any substantial participation from Flanders.