Chapter 3
The alternation between standard and vernacular pronouns by
Belgian Dutch parents in child-oriented control acts
This paper studies the social meaning of standard
and vernacular pronouns of address in Dutch by zooming in on the
position they hold in parents’ control acts to their children.
Linking the hyperstandardized linguistic situation in Flanders with
the Western-European ideal of democratic parenting, we expect to
find that the standard forms are more typically connected to more
indirect, softer control acts. This hypothesis is tested through a
mixed method approach, where quantitative and qualitative analyses
are used to chart the choices of ten Belgian Dutch parents when
issuing directives to their children. Studying 452 pronouns we
identify a clear link between the choice of variety and parameters
such as type of control act, repetition, mitigation and boosting and
type of pronoun, with ‘irritation’ as mediating factor.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Control acts
- 1.2Standard-vernacular variation in control acts
- 1.3The Dutch language laboratory
- 2.Data and variables
- 2.1Self-recordings
- 2.2Response variable: Pronouns of address in control acts
- 2.3Predictor variables
- 3.Analyses and results
- 3.1Results of the quantitative analyses
- 3.2Results of the qualitative analyses
- 4.Discussion and conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix
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Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Naborn, Lars, Dorien Van De Mieroop & Eline Zenner
2023.
Emotion in multivarietal family language policy in Flanders.
International Journal of Bilingualism 27:2
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