This paper analyses the realisation of two morpho-syntactic variables, thevariants of which are markers of Belgian Dutch versus Netherlandic Dutch.The database consists of a corpus of chat language produced by Flemishteenagers. Both a quantitative analysis of the relative frequency of the variantsin the 'speech' of the Flemish teenagers and a qualitative analysis of theirfunctional-pragmatic distribution reveal a strong dominance of the endogenousBrabantic Dutch variants. Data from the Spoken Dutch Corpus fromthe spontaneous speech of young Flemish adults confirm this tendency. Inspite of more than half a century of official language policy promoting convergencewith northern Netherlandic Dutch, the northern standard Dutchvariants are hardly integrated in the peergroup language of Flemish teenagersand young adults, although they do belong to their linguistic repertoire.
Managing multilingualism in the European Union: language policy evaluation for the European Parliament
