Perceptie van tussentaal in het gesproken Nederlands in Vlaanderen: een experimentele benadering van saillantie

In this paper, the results of a salience experiment in Flanders are reported. 80 informants were subjected to a qualitative interview in which they were asked to evaluate seven audio recordings, spoken in several regional versions of tussentaal (literally ‘in-between-language’) or in Standard Dutch. The informants had to judge which language variety was spoken in the recordings and they had to motivate on which features they based their judgment of the language used. This paper aims to show that research on salience has almost exclusively focused on whether a linguistic item is salient or not and that not enough attention has been paid to interpersonal variation in salience

De ideologische positie van Algemeen Nederlands in Vlaanderen: de standaardiseringsideologie onder druk?

The ideological position of Standard Dutch in Flanders: the standard language ideology under pressure? In this paper, the results of a perception study in Flanders are reported. 80 informants were subjected to a qualitative interview, to gain insight in the way Flemish language users judge on the situational appropriacy of several Dutch language varieties. The reported beliefs of the informants were compared to language ideological frameworks and they show an evolution in the standard language ideology (Milroy & Milroy, 1985), an ideology in which the standard language is considered to be the ideal and to be the only appropriate variety for formal and public situations. The informants still consider the standard language to be important and to be superior, but the variety according to them is not necessary for formal and public situations. Instead Tussentaal, lit. ‘in-between language’, has gained a position in the situational spectre

Standaardnederlands, de sleutel tot integratie in Vlaanderen? Over de uitdagingen van niet-standaardtaal voor NT2-leerders in Vlaanderen

Flanders strongly encourages newcomers to take language courses to learn the official language, on the assumption that certified competence in Dutch will enhance integration. However, in Dutch L2-education the focus lies on Standard Dutch, and this contrasts to everyday spoken encounters in Flanders, where Standard Dutch is rarely used. Despite the perceived importance of learning the official language of the host society, the attested contrast between policy and language reality has up to now not been given much attention. In this publication we go into the results of a linguistic-ethnographic study conducted with language learners living in East-Flanders. We show that non-standard Dutch used by L1-speakers of Dutch sometimes causes comprehension difficulties in their interactions with the language learners. Based on interactional and interview data, we reflect on the question if L2-education should pay more attention to non-standard Dutch in class