Dialect and identity in high school

Erik Schils & Rob Vousten

Fri. 11-12:40 C

The linguistic and social position of local dialects in the Netherlands is affected by the social and spatial mobility of the inhabitants and by the media which use standard Dutch as the medium of communication. The position of standard Dutch is becoming stronger, resulting in processes of dialect leveling and dialect loss.

Nevertheless, in some areas in the Netherlands, where the position of the local dialect is still relatively strong, a process of spontaneous, untutored acquisition of the local dialect as a second language by native speakers of standard Dutch is taking place. This phenomenon can be viewed particularly among adolescents who attend large high schools located in predominantly rural areas. Some children from standard speaking families, whose first language is standard Dutch, are adopting the local dialect from their peers. Others retain their first language, standard Dutch, and remain monolingual.

The research that will be reported on was carried out in Venray, a small town in the north of the Dutch province of Limburg. This dialect speaking area has seen a fast industrialization process together with an influx of standard Dutch speakers.

The subjects in our study were 151 high school students of approximately 15 years of age, born in standard Dutch speaking families that moved to the Venray area. The subjects were asked to rate their proficiency in the local dialect, showing that 40 of the 151 subjects consider themselves to be speakers of the local dialect. These are the so-called 'dialect learners'. The remaining 111 subjects are the 'non-learners'. In addition, a dialect test was administered to the dialect learners, measuring their proficiency in the local dialect in the lexical, phonological and morphological domains.

Extra-linguistic factors, which can be social and/or socio-psychological, are assumed to influence the acquisition of a second dialect to some extent. In this paper we will examine the role of identity, using a measurement developed by Bernard Spolksy. The instrument, which has been applied several times in second-language acquisition research, makes use of so-called 'identity scales'. It is based on the comparison of the learners' self-image, their desired self-image, their image of speakers of their first language (in our case: standard Dutch) and their image of speakers of the second language (in our case: the local dialect).

Using a multidimensional scaling technique we will demonstrate that the dialect learners perceive a smaller distance between their desired image and their image of dialect speakers than the non-learners. In other words, the dialect learners aim for an identity which is closer to their perception of dialect speakers.

The distances perceived by the learners can also be correlated to their scores on the dialect test. While identity can, to some extent, account for differences between dialect learners and non-learners, the role of identity in explaining differences in dialect proficiency seems less clear.