Linguistics

Page 1. Belgian Dutch versus Netherlandic Dutch: New patterns of divergence? On pronouns of address and diminutives REINHILD VANDEKERCKHOVE Abstract The linguistic climate in northern Belgium (Flanders) has been changing in recent years. ...

The paper focuses on the presence of English in a written chat corpus produced by Flemish teenagers whose native language is (a variety of) Dutch: it deals with the relative presence of several lexemes and word categories, with the effect on the target language and with the way the loans are integrated into teenager chatspeak, i.e. with (g)localisation processes. In quantitative terms, the impact of English on the informal “speech” of Flemish teenagers appears to be considerable, but the borrowing process is not a copy-and-paste practice. In many cases the teenagers transform the English words graphemically, morphologically and/or semantically. By using an extensive and reliable corpus and by quantifying and categorizing the English tokens in several ways, this paper aims at describing a representative case study for the appropriation of English by a generation the socialization process of which partly proceeds via electronic media.

The paper focuses on the presence of English in a written chat corpus produced by Flemish adolescents in their late teens whose native language is (a variety of) Dutch. Topics include the relative presence of lexemes and word categories, the effect on the target language (Dutch) and the way the loans are integrated into the chatspeak of the teenagers, i.e. (g)localisation processes. In quantitative terms, the impact of English on the informal ‘speech’ of Flemish teenagers appears to be considerable, but the borrowing process is not a ‘copy-and-paste’ practice. In many cases the teenagers transform the English words graphematically, morphologically and/or semantically. By using an extensive and reliable corpus and by quantifying and categorizing the English tokens in several ways, this paper offers a representative case study for the appropriation of English by a generation whose socialization process partly proceeds via electronic media.

The present case study tests the frequency of four clusters of features of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in a written chat corpus of more than two million words, produced by Flemish adolescents living in northern Belgium. The main focus is on the correlation between the occurrence of these features and the social variables gender and age, on the one hand, and the impact of the CMC-medium, on the other. For the latter parameter, a distinction is made between asynchronous and synchronous real time conversation. While gender has received ample attention in recent research on chat and texting practices, the findings qualify the impact of this social variable, and point to age and medium as two significant determinants of the use of typical CMC-features. Finally, the results call for a systematic distinction between expressive and playful vs. more strictly functional or economical features, since precisely that distinction enhances our understanding of the attested gender and age...

This paper focuses on a relatively new and much discussed phenomenon on Flemish television: The practice of intralingual subtitling of Dutch, i.e. Dutch subtitling of native speakers of (varieties of) Dutch. Our study investigates the linguistic determinants of intralingual subtitling and subsequently confronts actual subtitling practice with viewer needs. The analyses reveal a striking inconsistency between intralingual subtitling practice in fiction versus non-fiction programs. This appears to be symptomatic of a tension between the official language policy in Flanders and present day linguistic reality. As such, subtitling practice subtly reflects the existence of shifting linguistic norms in Flanders.

L'A. examine le changement de code entre le dialecte et la langue standard dans une communaute de Flandre occidentale en Belgique neerlandophone, en se basant sur des echantillons de conversations informelles. Une comparaison des resultats de cette analyse avec ceux d'une analyse effectuee dans le sud des Pays-Bas indique que le schema du changement de code dans le corpus est symptomatique de la situation linguistique de la Flandre occidentale. Contrairement a la situation des principales regions du nord de la Belgique et des Pays-Bas, les dialectes de la Flandre occidentale ont toujours une position dominante et l'usage de la langue standard est restreint a des contextes formels. L'analyse des comportements de changement de code des informateurs flamands occidentaux les plus jeunes confirme la position de monopole du dialecte comme moyen de communication informel aupres des groupes de contact

Recent developments in Translation Studies and translation practice have not only led to a profusion of approaches, but also to the development of new text forms and translation modes. Media Accessibility, particularly audio description (AD) and subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH), is an example of such a ‘new’ mode. SDH has been evolving quickly in recent decades and new developments such as interlingual SDH and live subtitling with speech recognition bring it closer to established forms of translation and interpreting. On the one hand, interlingual SDH reintroduces Jakobson’s (1959) ‘translation proper’ while the use of speech recognition has led to the creation of a hybrid form that has affinities with both subtitling and interpreting. Audio description, for its part, cannot even be fitted into Jakobson’s ‘intersemiotic translation’ model since it involves translation from images into words. Research into AD is especially interesting since it rallies methods from ad...

Despite the growth in research examining the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) for exchanging social support, there remains much to learn about the support-related implications of CMC. An experiment was conducted to examine the influence of the reduced social cues associated with CMC on the outcomes of supportive interaction. Participants discussed a stressor with a confederate either face-to-face or via CMC and received informational or emotional support. Although they received the exact same support messages, participants in the CMC condition reported significantly greater worry and uncertainty discrepancy following the interaction than participants in the face-to-face condition. A main effect was also found for support message type. Consistent with the optimal matching model, informational support led to more beneficial outcomes than emotional support in response to the (controllable) stressor experienced by participants.