The sociolinguistic importance of studying lexis of national varieties: A Dutch case study

Reglindis De RIDDER
Stockholms Universitet
(reglindis.deriddeenederlandska.su.se)

Keywords: Dutch, lexicography, corpus linguistics, audiovisual
Abstract

lt has been 15 years, since the official Dutch language-planning body, Nederlandse Taalunie, recognised the Dutch language area as a pluricentric language area with two national varieties in mainland Europe: Belgian Dutch (`Flemish') and Netherlandic Dutch. Netherlandic Dutch, however, is the more dominant variety, evidence of which can be found in publishing, translation, but also in lexicography. On the one hand, unlike Belgian Dutch lexis, dictionaries have only recently started to labet marked Netherlandic Dutch lexis. This meant that Belgian Dutch for a Jong time has been represented as a deviation from Standard (i.e. Netherlandic) Dutch. On the other hand to date, editors still remove Belgian Dutch linguistic features (often lexis) from novels by Belgian authors. What is more, publishing houses predominantly hire Dutch, rather than Belgian, translators to translate foreign-language fiction into Dutch in an attempt to avoid 'Belgian Dutch' translations. As the translated fiction output is higher in the Dutch language area, exposure to translated texts is greater. For this reason, such texts are valuable research objects in the Dutch language area. Subtitles, in particular, are significant disseminators of Dutch and therefore can be an underestimated language-planning tool.

First and foremost however, it is important to explore the status of Belgian Dutch within Belgium. This is why this paper discusses the Flemish Public Service Broadcaster's (VRT) language policy with regard to the use of its own, Belgian Dutch, variety. VRT has always been an important language planner in Dutch-speaking Belgium. In 1998, it changed its language policy finally acknowledging the existence of a Belgian Dutch national variety. Moreover, it also announced that it would no Tonger strictly adhere to the Netherlandic Dutch standard and actively use its own Belgian Dutch lexis. VRT subtitles were scrutinised to establish if VRT indeed uses its own lexis, rather than the Netherlandic Dutch counterparts.

Since lexicographic description of Netherlandic Dutch is rather new, alternative resources had to be found to Look up marked Netherlandic lexis occurring in the subtitles. To this end, corpora were used that allowed the frequency of occurrence of lexical variants to be tested in the linguistic output (i.e. actual language use) of both Belgian and Dutch nationals. The assumption being that words and expressions occurring exclusively or predominantly in the Netherlandic Dutch subcorpus and never or hardly ever in the Belgian Dutch subcorpus could be considered Netherlandic Dutch. This research yields interesting data in relation to the status of Belgian Dutch in Belgium on the one hand, and trends in the use and dissemination of Belgian Dutch variants, on the other. In doing so, it also promotes the use of corpora in diachronic sociolinguistic research.

Translation Biography

After obtaining a master in Translation Studies in my hometown Brussels, I decided to specialise in subtitling and enrolled on a master in Screen Translation in Sheffield. In the UK, I grew fascinated with the status of national varieties in pluricentric language areas and the rote of translators in minority and smaller or 'minoritised' language areas. For this reason, I embarked on a PhD in Dublin to delve more deeply into this matter. Currently, I am pursuing a postdoc in Stockholm investigating the linguistic standard used in audiovisual translation for Belgian children.