Koen Jaspaert

Social determinants of Language shift by Italians in the Netherlands and Flanders

The data reported on in this paper are drawn from a large-scale sociolinguistic research project dealing with language shift and language loss of Turkish* and Italian immigrants in Flanders and the Netherlands. We have reported on various aspects of this project on different occasions (Jaspaert and Kroon 1988, 1989). In this paper we will mainly be concerned with the analysis of part of our data (language choice among Italians) in a more theoretical and methodological perspective. In the first section a short outline of the project is given. Next, the operationalization of some central concepts and factors is discussed. The third and final section deals with the analysis of the language-choice data of the Italian group. We have not included a description of the Italian group in the Netherlands and Flanders, nor an extensive overview of literature on language-choice patterns in other situations. The interested reader can find this Information in Jaspaert and Kroon (1989) and in Jaspaert and Kroon (forthcoming). Information on language and minorities in the Netherlands in general can be found in Extra and Vallen (1988).