Stefan Grondelaers,* Paul van Gent,* Chloé Lybaert** & Dirk Speelman***
*Radboud University **Ghent Univerisity ***University of Leuven
VRT-Dutch is (not) dead (yet): On the omnipotence of zombie standards
Deumert (2010, p. 259) uses the evocative ‘zombie’ metaphor for standard varieties which are “essentially
dead, but continue to structure our actions and experiences because we (…) treat them as if they were real”.
This image fits few European varieties as well as VRT-Dutch, the norm for spoken Dutch which was forced onto
the Flemish in a process of hyperstandardisation (Van Hoof & Jaspers, 2012). In spite of the comparative
success of this standardization, VRT-Dutch has never been a vital production reality. Yet, it continues to be
ideologically powerful to the extent that it fuels controversy, and legitimizes the discrimination of Tussentaal,
an increasingly vital colloquial variety which is still widely stigmatized (Grondelaers & Van Hout, 2011;
Grondelaers et al., 2016).
If anything, standard language dynamics in Flanders seem to indicate that language ideology and language
production are not causally related, unless – as Kristiansen (2001, 2009) has demonstrated in Denmark – a
“double standard scenario” is emerging, whereby overt discourses uphold the traditional prestige of the official
norm, whereas more covert ideologies sustain the modern prestige and the vitality of emergent varieties which
are publicly downgraded.
In an attempt to confirm this double standard-scenario in Flanders, we conducted two experiments. In a free
response task, highly educated, younger and older participants returned the first three adjectives which came
to mind in response to six labels for varieties of Flemish Dutch, including VRT-Dutch and Tussentaal. Negative
evaluations for VRT-Dutch strongly suggest the emergence of an anti-ideology among younger respondents,
which is the probable effect of the hysterical mediatisation of VRT-Dutch (Lybaert, 2017, has similar
conclusions). However, a speaker evaluation experiment into the covert evaluations of Tussentaal (when
primed by the best VRT-Dutch), suggests that the more conservative standard ideology is as potent as ever:
although Tussentaal-features can have modern prestige, their evaluation clearly seems to be conditioned by
the VRT-ideology.
Time permitting, we will theorize these findings in the light of the Kristiansen-scenario, and the
destandardisation vs. demoticization contrast proposed in the SLICE-literature.