Eliminating social inequality by reinforcing standard language ideology? Language policy for Dutch in Flemish schools

Abstract

Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, is experiencing growing intraand interlingual diversity. On the intralingual level, Tussentaal ('in-between-language') has emerged as a cluster of intermediate varieties between the Flemish dialects and Standard Dutch, gradually becoming the colloquial language. At the same time, Flanders is encountering increasing numbers of immigrants and their languages. This paper analyses the way Flemish language-in-education policy deals with perceived problems of substandardisation and multilingualism, in order to create equal opportunities for all pupils, regardless of their native language or social background. Both the policy and the measures it proposes are strongly influenced by different, yet intertwined ideologies of standardisation and monolingualism. By propagating Standard Dutch as the only acceptable language and by denying all forms of language diversity, Flemish language-in-education policy not only fails to create equal opportunities, but also reinforces ideologies that maintain inequality. Instead, language policy should be open towards language diversity, taking the role of teachers in forming and implementing policies into consideration.Keywords: language-in-education policy; standard language ideology; monolingualism; social inequality; Dutch in Flanders; Tussentaal Language policy: ideology, planning and practice Language policies are present in some form in all domains of society (Ricento, 2006). It is in the domain of education, however, that such policies have the most impact on the members of society, as language-in-education policies play a paramount role in how a society articulates and plans for the future of its members (Liddicoat, 2013). Official documents are the most overt and articulated forms of language policy, but policies also exist in more covert forms, underlying the practices of language use and language learning in education. As such, policies discuss societal beliefs and attitudes about the value of languages or language varieties: which languages or language varieties are considered to have the most value regarding future societal success for pupils, and subsequently have a place in the classroom? This inextricable link between policy and society is used by Djité (1994) to discern between two kinds of processes in language policy: (i) processes at the societal level, where certain problems (e.g. social inequality) are formulated, together with possible solutions and (ii) at the linguistic level, where the linguistic norms which a community will use (or is expected to use) are selected.

The Discursive Construction of Teacher Identities: Flemish Teachers' Perceptions of Standard Dutch

“…Second, earlier studies (Delarue 2011, 2012; De Caluwe 2012b; Delarue & De Caluwe 2015; Jaspers 2015) have shown a large gap between language policy and linguistic practice in Flemish educational settings. In spite of the strictly monolingual language-in-education policy in Flanders, teachers seem to be taking liberties with those strict norms: Nonstandard features are used quite frequently in Flemish classrooms (Delarue 2011, 2013).…”

“…This pressure is prominent in Flemish language-in-education policies (Vandenbroucke 2007, Smet 2011), where the use of the standard variety inside as well as outside the classroom is strongly advocated; it is considered to be a conditio sine qua non for a successful school career, participation in Flemish society, and socio-economic promotion. In other words, Standard Dutch is essential for eliminating social inequality (Delarue & De Caluwe 2015). However, this egalitarian aspiration of Flemish education (see Hirtt et al 2007) actually is rather meritocratic in nature, in that it reproduces social statuses and provides access to elite linguistic (that is, Standard Dutch) forms 2…”

Beware of the weeds

“…6 Linguistic purism in Flemish education policy and public debate Education has come under regional, Flemish jurisdiction since 1988. It was not until less than ten years ago, however, that two relatively similar linguistic policies were formulated in 2007 and 2011 by successive Labor Ministers of Education (see Delarue and De Caluwe 2015). In line with the above, the basic argument of both policy documents is that multilingual skills are crucial in the global economy, but ought to be anchored in Standard Dutch.…”

‘We don’t need another Afrikaans’. Adequation and distinction in South-African and Flemish language policies

“…In spite of the above, we suggest there are few signs that Flemings will soon be sanctioning their Flemish as a distinct language from Dutch, as the Afrikaners did (see below). Indeed, apart from the intellectuals who are explicit about the importance of Standard Dutch as a beacon of civilisation and high culture, discourse-analytic studies show that Standard Dutch continues to be accentuated in Flemish language education policy, which is explicitly critical of nonstandard language use (Delarue and De Caluwe, 2015;Jaspers, 2015). Mainstream media are likewise strongly focused on the notion of a modern standard language when reporting on sociolinguistic research (Jaspers, 2014).…”