De status van de Vlaamse tussentaal. Een analyse van enkele socio-economische determinanten

Samenvatting

This paper analyses the Flemish tussentaal (trans. ‘interlanguage’) in relation to the socio-economic status of its speakers. Based on a sociolectometrical method, the results show that, although the higher classes make more use of the standard language, the degree of this shift is attenuated with each successive class. This leads to an interpretation in terms of ‘diminishing returns’: although Standard Dutch is the marker of prestige, the higher classes possess sufficient wealth and status to ‘relax’ their linguistic behaviour. Finally, the analysis extends to gender, as women are also more colloquial than men.