22 The Linguist Vol/56 No/5 2017
www.ciol.org.uk
FEATURES
Anne-Sophie Ghyselen asks whether, as some decry,
Dutch people are moving towards less formal language
O
n 26 May, the Dutch public
broadcaster, NTR, announced
that it will no longer organise and
broadcast Het Groot Dictee der Nederlandse
Taal ('The Grand Dictation of the Dutch
Language'). This caused quite a stir both in
the mainstream media and online. For 27
years, this annual show asked Dutch and
Fleming contestants to spell out a text by a
prominent literary author, read live on TV,
while thousands of viewers at home tried to
spell it along with them. For many, NTR's
decision is a sign that the population's
interest in correct language and language
norms is dwindling. This type of complaint is
not unique to Dutch but is happening
throughout Europe, albeit with different
causes. The question is whether language
norms are, indeed, becoming less important
in the 21st century. To answer this, I looked at
the situation in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking
area in north Belgium, as a test case.
Language norms become explicit through
standardisation processes, which are generally
believed to have been established in Europe
from the late Middle Ages onwards.
According to the renowned sociologist
Norbert Elias, language standardisation
forms part of a broader civilising process,
during which more strictly regulated manners
came into fashion.
1
New codes of conduct
were gradually accepted, stimulated by the
idea that 'uncivilised behaviour' results in
shame, which should be avoided at all costs.
The 'civilising' process spread from elitist
environments to larger societal groups and
was enhanced by societal changes, such as
the development of the printing press
(increasing the need for lingua francas) and
the rise of nationalist ideologies in which the
'one-nation-one-language' idea was central.
Standard language ideologies gradually
Away with norms?
