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The socio-cultural conditions of late modernity induce a "reflexive imperative" amongst young people, which also results in metapragmatic and metalinguistic behaviour, as has been demonstrated by linguistic ethnographers (LE). However, recent LE studies on reflexivity in Western European settings have mainly focused on how groups of socially low-status, geographically mobile and multilingual youth are involved in creative linguistic processes in which the disapproval of their linguistic hybridity is denounced. In this paper, based on a linguistic-ethnographic study, I will uncover the influence of the reflexive imperative on a different group: six high-achieving, white, elite, male, adolescent pupils in Flemish Belgium. Through a micro-analysis of their metacommentaries and speech practices, I describe the subtle metalinguistic and metapragmatic moves of the pupils, which demonstrate their attitude towards standard language use at school. An analysis of these boys' linguistic reflexivity demonstrates a complex attitude towards Standard Dutch and Standard Language Ideology: at first sight, they seem to incline towards linguistic equality, resulting in a relaxation of the standard norm. However, an analysis of the more indirect metapragmatic practices of these boys reveals how they strategically use the symbolic capital of Standard Dutch, a practice which echoes the Flemish language-in-education policy and might serve to preserve (or prepare) their (future) elite position in society.

Since the 1950s and especially since the early 1990s, tussentaal is a “hot item” amongstFlemish linguists. Nevertheless, its descriptions and explanations are still rather thin onthe ground. Existing data on non- or sub-standard spoken Dutch in Flanders are too scarcefor linguists to answer important questions about tussentaal's conceptualization and variation.This paperis a modest attempt to broaden the existing data set through analyzingthe informal speech of seven children in the youth movement. This survey pointed outthat for these children, tussentaal is normative in informal situations, but that even if thechildren know other varieties of Dutch, they hardly ever switch neatly from one toanother. This suggests that they do not conceptualize tussentaal as a separate variety ofDutch, but as a set of variants that can be used separately depending on the expression ofcertain meanings and relevant pragmatic values.

Abstract1 For a couple of decades now, in Flanders, the functional elaboration of what is generally called tussentaal, i.e. mesolectal language use situated in between (‘tussen’) acrolectal Standard Dutch and basilectal Flemish dialects, has caused increasing concern about the position of Standard Dutch relative to other recognized ways of speaking. This has provoked intense debate about the proper characterization of this evolution. In this paper I focus on the daily language practices and overt attitudes of six girls at a Flemish secondary school to illustrate that it is relatively easy to find evidence that suggests the mentioned evolution is properly characterized as a type of destandardization. Yet by zooming in on the covert attitudes of the girls, which are influenced by the Standard Language Ideology (SLI), I will argue that a close ethnographic study of daily language use is able to go beyond the surface appearances of larger-scale ideologies and can demonstrate the continuing influence of standardization. Sociolinguistic ethnography may therefore have a vital role to play in the ongoing debate about language variation in Flanders.