Violations of prescriptive rules and speaker education: Young “Randstad” females’ perception of usage problems in spoken Dutch

Dutch grammar prescriptions decree that in subject position, the subject pronoun 'zij' and not the oblique 'hun' should be used. Consequently, the following sentence can only exemplify proper written and spoken Dutch if 'zij' is selected: *Hun/Zij hebben dat gedaan! ("Them/They did that!"). Scholars have revealed that university students disapprove of *hun in a spoken Dutch story (Janssen 2004), and that the more highly educated a group of speakers is, the lower that group’s self-reported use of *hun is likely to be (Bennis & Hinskens 2014). Yet, it remains unclear whether and, if so, how different educational groups perceive 'hun hebben' as well as other 'taalergernissen' (“language annoyances”, or “usage problems”) in spoken Dutch. My sociolinguistic study into 45 young Dutch females’ perception and evaluation of five usage problems in spoken Dutch confirms that speakers’ education is a relevant social variable that future studies about related topics should consider. The speakers...Show moreDutch grammar prescriptions decree that in subject position, the subject pronoun 'zij' and not the oblique 'hun' should be used. Consequently, the following sentence can only exemplify proper written and spoken Dutch if 'zij' is selected: *Hun/Zij hebben dat gedaan! ("Them/They did that!"). Scholars have revealed that university students disapprove of *hun in a spoken Dutch story (Janssen 2004), and that the more highly educated a group of speakers is, the lower that group’s self-reported use of *hun is likely to be (Bennis & Hinskens 2014). Yet, it remains unclear whether and, if so, how different educational groups perceive 'hun hebben' as well as other 'taalergernissen' (“language annoyances”, or “usage problems”) in spoken Dutch. My sociolinguistic study into 45 young Dutch females’ perception and evaluation of five usage problems in spoken Dutch confirms that speakers’ education is a relevant social variable that future studies about related topics should consider. The speakers with a WO degree (“university degree”) more often commented on the non-standard features in a radio listening task than speakers with HBO (“higher vocational education”) or MBO (“intermediate vocational education”) degrees did. Additionally, the university graduates also were less tolerant of, and more strongly distanced themselves from, spoken sentences that included such non-standard features as compared to the HBO and MBO graduates.Show less

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Violations of prescriptive rules and speaker education: Young “Randstad” females’ perception of usage problems in spoken Dutch