Chapter 5. Language Use and Language Attitudes in Brussels

Mettewie, Laurence; Janssens, Rudi

doi:10.21832/9781853599316-007

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Nevertheless, this study must be viewed in the context of other studies, e.g. Mettewie and Janssens (2007), which confirm the preference of both Francophones and Dutch speakers in Brussels for English, and their negative attitudes towards the 'second official language' …”

Section: O'donnell 2000 á 2001: Legal Separation But No Divorcesupporting

confidence: 66%

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Multilingualism in Brussels: ‘I'd Rather Speak English’

O'Donnell

Toebosch

2008

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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Language is both a divisive and a unifying force in Brussels. Historically predominantly Dutch-speaking, surrounded by the officially Dutch-speaking federal state of Flanders, located in a majority Dutch-speaking nation-state, and with the majority of its Belgian citizens Francophone, Brussels has officially been bilingual Dutch Á French since 1962. This paper reports the results of a survey undertaken to uncover the actual language usage and preferences in the Belgian capital. It shows that in a society where old divisions and sensitivities between French and Dutch speakers persist, English has emerged as the 'neutral third party'.

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Section: O'donnell 2000 á 2001: Legal Separation But No Divorcesupporting

confidence: 66%

“…One informant diplomatically stated that she spoke better English than French, but would try to communicate in French. The results are clear: in both O'Donnell 200Á2001 and Mettewie and Janssens (2007), Francophones and Dutch speakers did not want to speak each others' languages.…”

Section: The Preferred Language Problemmentioning

confidence: 95%

Multilingualism in Brussels: ‘I'd Rather Speak English’

O'Donnell

Toebosch

2008

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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“…While Brussels is officially bilingual (Dutch-French) since 1963, it does not offer bilingual educationthe four, exclusive, EU-funded European schools excepted. This has complex institutional and ideological origins that, for reasons of space, we shall not go into here (but see Sherman Swing 1988; Mettewie and Janssens 2007;Jaspers 2015). Suffice it to say that education in the Brussels Capital Region is not organised by the city authorities but by the Dutch-and French-speaking Community in Belgium who also provide education in the Flemish and Walloon Region, respectively; and that less than a third of Brussels' schools are Dutch-medium.…”

Section: Dutch-medium Schools In Brusselsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Soft power: teachers’ friendly implementation of a severe monolingual policy

Jaspers

Rosiers

2019

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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Dutch-medium schools in Brussels traditionally cater to a Dutch-speaking minority, but they have recently seen a massive influx of pupils with a limited competence in Dutch. In order to face the resulting pedagogical and ideological challenges, many of these schools have intensified their efforts to remain Dutch enclaves in a predominantly Francophone city. In this article we discuss one Dutch-medium secondary school that positions itself as fairly severe in this regard. We will demonstrate, however, that teachers were generally drawn to a more friendly interpretation of their language policy as they reconciled monolingual expectations with multilingual pupils. Thus, although teachers agreed that a severe linguistic stance was important, they formulated various reasons for not adopting this stance relentlessly. And while pupils in principle could earn a ticket for not speaking Dutch, teachers often merely prefigured the possibility of sanctions, ignored the use of other languages to address other pressing matters, and occasionally recruited pupils' other linguistic skills as a pedagogical devicewithout, however, reneging on their language political stance. We argue that these ambivalent strategies can be usefully explained as the outcome of negotiating dilemmatically related ideological concerns.

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“…Furthermore, there is a strong on-going body of evidence showing that people tend to have more positive attitudes towards their home language (e.g., Baker, 1992;Mettewie & Janssens, 2007;Moriarty, 2010). Studies conducted in Catalonia found that participants whose home language was Catalan had significantly more favorable attitudes towards Catalan than Spanish, while participants whose home language was Spanish expressed more positive attitudes towards Spanish in comparison with Catalan ([author(s)]; Madariaga et al, 2016Madariaga et al, , 2013.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit language attitudes in Catalonia (Spain): investigating preferences for Catalan or Spanish using the Implicit Association Test

Ianos

Rusu

Huguet

et al. 2020

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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In line with the increased interest in studying implicit language attitudes, this study aims to explore implicit attitudes towards Catalan and Spanish in the multicultural and multilingual context of Catalonia (Spain) using the Implicit Association Test (IAT). A sample of 113 adolescents completed the IAT and a set of explicit measures of attitudinal and motivational variables. Results show a general preference for Catalan over Spanish. However, differences appear when home language is taken into consideration, as participants tend to prefer their home language. The paper discusses the relationship between implicit and explicit attitudes, highlighting the importance of incorporating implicit measures in language attitudes research in Catalonia.

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Chapter 5. Language Use and Language Attitudes in Brussels

Cited by 21 publications

References 0 publications

Multilingualism in Brussels: ‘I'd Rather Speak English’

Multilingualism in Brussels: ‘I'd Rather Speak English’

Soft power: teachers’ friendly implementation of a severe monolingual policy

Implicit language attitudes in Catalonia (Spain): investigating preferences for Catalan or Spanish using the Implicit Association Test

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