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- Title
Language variation and local elements in family discourse.
- Authors
Annick De Houwer
- Abstract
This study focuses on language variation in three families with small children in Antwerp, an officially Dutch-speaking large city in Belgium. Language variation is mainly considered here in terms of whether utterances contain local dialect features or not. Phonetic transcriptions of recorded natural family interaction were coded for language variation on an utterance-by-utterance basis. The following distinctions in usage emerge: local utterances containing dialect elements tend to be used when older children and adults in the family address each other. Neutral forms, which are common all over Flanders, may also be used, whereas distal features, which are imports from a Dutch variety outside Flanders, are to be avoided. However, when older children and adults address the younger members of the family, they increase their use of neutral forms, substantially reduce their use of local forms, and occasionally use distal forms. The younger children use mainly utterances categorized as neutral, dependent on who they are addressing. Implications of this variation across family members for language change are discussed.
- Subjects
VARIATION in language; DIALECTS; SUBLANGUAGE; DUTCH language; GERMANIC languages
- Publication
Language Variation & Change, 2003, Vol 15, Issue 3, p329
- ISSN
0954-3945
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/S0954394503153033