Koen Plevoets Faculty of Applied Language Studies University College Ghent the Geometry of Linguistic Variation a Lectometrical Analysis of Belgian Dutch

The geometry of linguistic variation

Koen Plevoets Faculty of Applied Language Studies University College Ghent The geometry of linguistic variation A lectometrical analysis of Belgian Dutch

2 The geometry of linguistic variation • Lectometry: measurement of distances between language varieties or ‘lects’ • ‘Lect’: generalisation of dialect, sociolect, mesolect,… • Convergence of • Dialectometry (Heeringa 2004) • Register analysis (Biber 1995) • OUTCOME: geometrical representation

Overview

• Background: Belgian Dutch • General research question • Data • Method • Case studies • Conclusion

5 Background

Belgian Dutch: Dutch spoken in Flanders, the Northern part of Belgium

Background

• 1585: fall of Antwerp • Southern provinces (i.e. Flanders) remained under foreign rule (Spanish, Austrian, French) • Northern provinces (i.e. The Netherlands) had a ‘Golden Century’ (17 th C) • The Netherlands developed Standard Dutch

8 Background

• 1830: independence of Belgium • French is the overall dominant language • 2nd half 19 th C: industrialisation • Walloon cities of Charleroi, Mons, La Louvière, Liège, Verviers,... • Flanders remains agrarian and poor • Reaction: Flemish Movement

9 Background

• Standard Dutch adopted from The Netherlands • 1873, 1878, 1883, 1898: ‘language laws’ grant official recognition of Dutch • 1st half 20 th C: gradual social improvement • After WW II: large-scale standardisation efforts (mass-media) • RESULT: diglossia

10 Background

~ Auer (2005) Standard Dutch

Flemish dialects

11 Background

• Main sociolinguistic finding: linguistic insecurity (Deprez & Geerts 1977, Knops 1982, Geerts 1985,...) • DEF: tendency to depreciate items which one uses oneself • Hypercorrections • ‘Sunday suit’

12 Background

• 2nd half 20 th C: economic development of Flanders • Service and knowledge economy • Prosperity and welfare

Background

• Upward mobility • Formation of an elite

15 Background

~ Auer (2005): ‘diaglossia ’ Standard Dutch

Flemish dialects

16 Background

‘Flemish Diamond ’

17 Background

‘Flemish Diamond ’

18 Background

~ Auer (2005) Standard Dutch

Regiolects

19 Background

• ‘Brabantic expansion’: neighbouring regions adopt Brabantic forms (prestige) • Attitude change: inhabitants of Brabantic area rate their vernacular forms higher than standard forms (linguistic confidence) (Jaspaert 1986, Impe 2010)

~ Arabic (exemplary case of diglossia) (Abd-el-Jawad 1986, 1987, Holes 1983, Ibrahim 1986)

20 Background

21 Background

CONCLUSION: disintegration of Belgian Dutch into a multitude of varieties

22 General research question

Depict the varieties of Belgian Dutch

23 Data

• TSS • Spoken Dutch Corpus (10M #) • Speech situations & social factors • 37 linguistic variables • COMURE • Dutch Parallel Corpus (10M #) • Text types & source languages • 13 linguistic variables

24 Method

• Linguistic variable: alternation of linguistic variants • E.g. • -ing vs. -in’ • (TO BE) not vs. ain’t • ...

25 Method

wvl ovl bra lim deze 30 46 55 24 dezen 2 6 15 6 die 821 894 1222 611 dieje.n 27 61 345 89 diene.n 143 383 114 59 geen 215 239 353 167 gene.n 23 97 150 57 …

26 Method

• Correspondence Analysis: Chi-square as a distance metric (i.e. Mahalanobis distance)

(bra − wvl )T S −1(bra − wvl ) • Partitioning: Huyghens’ theorem 2 = 2 + 2 X Total X Between XWithin ( − )2 2 = O Esub XWithin ∑∑∑ E

Case study 1: TSS

• Spoken Dutch Corpus (10M #) • Speech situations & social factors • 37 linguistic variables

Case study 1: TSS

• a: Face-to-face conversations • b: Interviews with teachers of Dutch • c: Telephone dialogues (switchboard) • d: Telephone dialogues (mini disc) • f: Broadcast discussions/debates • g: Non-broadcast discussions/debates • h: Lessons recorded in classroom

32 Case study 1: TSS

• i: Live commentaries (sports) • j: News reports/reportages • k: News bulletins • l: Commentaries/columns/reviews • m: Ceremonious speeches/sermons • n: Lectures/seminars • o: Read texts

Case study 1: TSS

•A: Occupation in higher management or government •B: Occupation requiring higher education •C: Employed in the teaching or research staff of a university or a college •D: Employed in an administrative office or a service organisation •E: Occupation not requiring any level of specification

42 Case study 1: TSS

•F: Self-employed •G: Politician • H: Employed in the media (journalist, reporter) or artist •I: Student, trainee •J: Unemployed

Case study 1: TSS

• Informalisation (Wouters 2007): the growing welfare makes people more independent, which deregulates social norms • Engel’s law • Ernst Engel (1821-1896) • As income increases, the expenditure on basic necessities (e.g. food) may increase in absolute numbers but decreases in relative numbers • As income increases, one proportionally invests more in luxury and/or leisurely activities

Case study 2: COMURE

• Dutch Parallel Corpus (10M #) • Text types & source languages • 13 linguistic variables

63 Case study 2: COMURE

• Background: • Law of growing standardisation (Toury 1995) or Normalisation universal (Baker 1993) • Translations tend to be closer to the standard norms than non-translations

• Project: • Isabelle Delaere (Ph.D.) • Gert De Sutter (supervisor)

Conclusion

• (In)formality depends on context : formal situations ask for formal variants • (In)formality depends on power : dominant individuals can afford themselves more leniency

73 Bibliography Abd-el-Jawad, H. (1986). “The emergence of an urban dialect in the Jordanian urban centers”. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 61, 53-63. Abd-el-Jawad, H. (1987). “Cross-dialectal variation in Arabic: Competing prestigious forms”. Language in Society 16, 359-368. Auer, P. (2005). “Europe's sociolinguistic unity, or: A typology of European dialect/standard constellations”. In: N. Delbecque, J. Van der Auwera & D. Geeraerts (eds.), Perspectives on variation: Sociolinguistic, historical, comparative . Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 8-42. Baker, M. (1993). “Corpus linguistics and translation studies. Implications and applications”. In: M. Baker, G. Francis & E. Tognini-Bonelli (eds.), Text and technology. In honour of john sinclair . Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 233-250. Biber, D. (1995). Dimensions of register variation. A cross-linguistic comparison . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deprez, K. & G. Geerts (1977). Lexicale en pronominale standaardizatie: een onderzoek van de ontwikkeling van het algemeen Nederlands in West -Vlaanderen .. Antwerpen: Universiteit Antwerpen. Geerts, G. (1985). “Taalvariatie en taalnormen in Vlaanderen”. VMKA 1, 85-112. Heeringa, W. (2004). Measuring dialect pronunciation differences using Levenshtein distances. Groningen: Doctoral dissertation, University of Groningen. Holes, C. (1983). “Patterns of communal language variation in Bahrain”. Language in Society 12, 433-457. Ibrahim, M. (1986). “Standard and prestige language: a problem in Arabic sociolinguistics”. Anthropological Linguistics 28, 115-126. Impe, L. (2010). Mutual intelligibility of national and regional varieties of Dutch in the Low Countries. Leuven: Doctoral dissertation, Univeristy of Leuven. Jaspaert, K. (1986). Statuut en structuur van standaardtalig Vlaanderen. Leuven: University Press. Knops, U. (1982). Attitudes van Vlamingen tegenover de Nederlandse standaardtaal . Leuven: Doctoral dissertation, University of Leuven. Toury, G. (1995). Descriptive translation studies and beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wouters, C. (2007). Informalization. Manners and emotions since 1890 . Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Thank you!

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