De Sutter, Gert

Keisse, Anse

Prieels, Lynn

English

Ghent University Academic Bibliography

Audience’s perceptions and attitudes toward the use of colloquial Belgian Dutch in Flemish subtitling: further evidence for the gradual acceptance of tussentaal Dutch Lynn Prieels, Anse Keisse and Gert De Sutter Research unit EQTIS (Empirical and Quantitative Translation and Interpreting Studies) Ghent University  The present study investigates the vitality of colloquial Belgian Dutch by examining to what extent it is used in the intralingual subtitles of the Flemish public broadcaster VRT and how television viewers perceive the use of this tussentaal in subtitling. Previous research has demonstrated that tussentaal frequently occurs in spoken language on Flemish television (e.g. Van Hoof, 2013). Therefore, it is particularly interesting to investigate whether tussentaal penetrates in intralingual subtitles and, if that is the case, whether the audience sympathizes with this. Such a shift from an exclusively spoken variety to a written medium would be indicative for the further spreading and acceptance of tussentaal in Flanders.  In a first step, we examine (i) to what extent Flemish subtitlers prefer colloquial Belgian Dutch rather than General Standard Dutch, (ii) whether they more often use lexical colloquialisms than morphological and grammatical colloquialisms, and (iii) whether the program genre affects these linguistic choices. To achieve this goal, we analyze the language use in the original speech and the corresponding subtitles of forty television programs that were broadcast by VRT between 2014 and 2016. The results reveal that colloquial Belgian Dutch does not merely occur in spoken registers, but that it also appears in the written subtitles of the public broadcaster, especially in entertainment programs (e.g. fiction and comedy). In a next step, we investigate the perceptions and attitudes of the Flemish television audience toward the use of tussentaal in intralingual subtitling. To achieve this goal, 24 informants are shown two cooking shows, of which one fragment contains intralingual subtitles in Standard Dutch and the other in tussentaal. Afterwards, the participants are interviewed to verify (i) whether the use of tussentaal in the subtitles draws their attention (perception) and (ii) whether they prefer of reject tussentaal in television subtitling (attitude). The results reveal that Standard Dutch is still believed to be the best language for written discourse, even though tussentaal is proved to be a vital alternative in television subtitling. References Van Hoof, S. (2013). Feiten en fictie. Taalvariatie in Vlaamse televisiereeksen vroeger  en nu. Nederlandse Taalkunde, 18(1), 35-64. 

Audience’s perceptions and attitudes toward the use of colloquial Belgian Dutch in Flemish subtitling: further evidence for the gradual acceptance of tussentaal Dutch

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Audience’s perceptions and attitudes toward the use of colloquial Belgian Dutch in Flemish subtitling: further evidence for the gradual acceptance of tussentaal Dutch

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Ghent University Academic Bibliography