Nederlandse Taalkunde - Volume 25, Issue 2-3, 2020

Abstract The influence of prescriptivism on Dutch Weerman (2003) unequivocally rejected the possibility for language to be malleable. At the time, there was little empirical research to challenge or support this claim. Over the last two decades, however, a fairly large body of research has delved into this issue. In light of this, we review some of Weerman’s views, and discuss new findings of the recent literature, both for Dut Read More

Abstract Natiolectisms in crime fiction. Language variation in subtitles Sarah Van Hoof and Bram Vandekerckhove (2013) studied linguistic variation in a diachronic corpus of television series broadcast by the Flemish public service broadcaster (VRT). To establish whether there had been a decrease in oral standard Dutch language usage between the late 1970s and the late 2000s, they scrutinised the actors’ rendition of the Read More

Abstract More international, collective, gender diverse This contribution sheds light on three tendencies in the history of the journal Dutch Linguistics: the increase of Belgian authors, of female authors and of co-authors.

Abstract Early perspectives on language acquisition Early psycholinguistics used to be a neglected area, due to the spectacular restart of the discipline during the 1950s and 1960s. In an article published in Nederlandse Taalkunde 10 (2005), Marijke van der Wal and Ariane van Santen contribute to a correction of this disbalance by discussing early 20th-century Dutch research into language acquisition. Their discussion Read More

Abstract In a special issue of Nederlandse Taalkunde (vol. 13(2), 2008), eight discussants commented on the so-called written language bias thesis, which claims that in literate societies, both naive language users and linguists perceive spoken language in terms of units that are in fact properties of writing: letters, words, and sentences. This thesis was discussed and defended in a lengthy book from 2006, Homo loquens en homo s Read More

Abstract In 2003, Theo Janssen wrote a contribution for Nederlandse Taalkunde [Dutch Linguistics] about the incorporation of linguistic knowledge into the school subject of Dutch Language and Literature, hoping thus to enrich the content of the school subject and making it more inspiring. In our contribution we discuss the great relevance of Janssen's contribution, and we show that his plea is still extremely topical. In addition, Read More