oa Regiolect verankerd

Consolidating Regiolect. A survey of dialect and regiolect use by adolescents in the Eindhoven area

This study is a survey of dialect use, accent strength, knowledge and use of lexical dialect items, and attitude among adolescents in the Eindhoven area, an urbanized area in the Dutch province of North-Brabant. Regiolects tend to emerge and take over the functions of dialects in large parts of Europe, including the Netherlands, especially in urbanized areas. The basic research hypothesis of this study is that respondents report regiolect use more often than dialect use.

Data of 259 respondents have been gathered. The age varied from 12 to 18, education ranged from VMBO (lower secondary professional education) to VWO (pre university education) and all respondents lived in either Eindhoven or surrounding places, defining the urbanized area of Eindhoven. For analyses, respondents have been divided in three age groups, three education groups and two language groups.

Analyses of the data suggest that Standard Dutch is the preferred variety in every domain of language use, but a substantial number of respondents reported to be able to speak regiolect or dialect. Many dialect items were unknown to our respondents, but regiolect items were reported to be widely used, even by respondents who claimed to be using Standard Dutch exclusively. Accordingly, respondents generally had a positive attitude towards both Brabantic language varieties and the culture of Brabant. Adolescents, even when coming from outside of the province of Brabant, have an obvious sense of belonging to Brabant, as signalled by their widespread use of the Brabantic regiolect.