Books by Jos Swanenberg
Ongoing globalization processes are turning the world into a far more diverse place than it has e... more Ongoing globalization processes are turning the world into a far more diverse place than it has ever been before. Apart from people and goods, languages and cultures are also crossing borders, thereby creating new super-diverse sociolinguistic environments in which new discursive genres and patterns are emerging, along with new linguistic and cultural practices and identities. These processes are not only at work in situations where people engage in conversations and in written communication in the real world, but also in the virtual social environments of the online world where there appear to be no limits in terms of time and space. In this edited volume, we encounter the traces of globalization and features of superdiversity in unexpected places, literally, at the margins, far away from the well-known vibrant global centers.
MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION by Jos Swanenberg
Departing from a critical discussion of the mothertongue plus two language policy of the EU, whic... more Departing from a critical discussion of the mothertongue plus two language policy of the EU, which because of its focus on learning standard languages is shown to fail the intended goals, this paper rejects an " English only " approach as a possible solution for the problems of European multilingualism and develops the concept of " Inclusive Multilingualism " as a more viable and realistic policy alternative. Therefore, firstly, this concept is defined as including interactive strategies or communicative modes to overcome the limitations of foreign language competence, justified theoretically and related to similar concepts like plurilingualism. Five modes (the use of English as a lingua franca, regional linguae francae, lingua receptiva, codeswitching and translation and interpretation) are then described as well-researched constituents of Inclusive Multilingualism. Finally , implications for a wider concept of communicative competence and language teaching are outlined as well as perspectives for future research. Zusammenfassung: Ausgehend von einer kritischen Diskussion der als Mutter-sprache plus zwei bekannten Sprachenpolitik der EU, die wegen ihrer Fokussie-rung auf das Erlernen von Standardsprachen ihre Ziele nicht erreichen kann, verwirft dieser Beitrag zunächst Vorschläge, " English only " als Lösung der Pro-bleme der europäischen Mehrsprachigkeit zu wählen, und entwickelt dann das Konzept einer " Inklusiven Mehrsprachigkeit " als brauchbarere und realistischere Alternative. Dafür wird dieses Konzept zunächst definiert als die Beherrschung interaktiver Strategien bzw. kommunikativer Modi, mit denen Beschränkungen sprachlicher Kompetenz überwunden werden können, ferner theoretisch begrün-det und in Relation gesetzt zu ähnlichen Konzepten wie Plurilingualismus. An-schließend werden fünf Modi (der Gebrauch von Englisch als Lingua Franca, regionalen Linguae Francae, Lingua Rezeptiva, Codeswitching sowie Übersetzen und Dolmetschen) als gut erforschte Hauptkomponenten von Inklusiver Mehr-sprachigkeit beschrieben. Abschließend werden die Konsequenzen für ein weiter gefasstes Konzept von kommunikativer Kompetenz und den Sprachunterricht und ebenso Perspektiven für zukünftige Forschung aufgezeigt.
Papers by Jos Swanenberg
Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication
This paper discusses variation in adnominal gender marking in two urban youth varieties in the Ne... more This paper discusses variation in adnominal gender marking in two urban youth varieties in the Netherlands, i.e., Moroccan Dutch in the city of Gouda and leveled local dialect, Brabantish, in the city of Eindhoven. In both settings, linguistic practices are influenced by language contact with Standard Dutch, the dominant language in society, resulting in variation patterns such as omissions and overgeneralizations (i.e., hyperforms). Interestingly, we find overgeneralizations of common gender determiners in Moroccan Dutch, as described in previous research, but also of neuter gender determiners. This hypercorrect usage of the (neuter) prestige variant contrasts with the variation found in the Brabantish variety, as the Eindhoven speakers tend to overuse the local dialect form instead of the standard variant. However, we show that both variation patterns may well be driven by the same underlying mechanism of (re-)indexicalization. Data from speech recordings and online peer conversat...
Taal en tongval, Dec 31, 2020
The present paper discusses gender marking, i.e. the morphological marking of masculine, feminine... more The present paper discusses gender marking, i.e. the morphological marking of masculine, feminine and neuter lexical gender in the adnominal domain, in Brabantish dialects spoken in the southern Dutch province North-Brabant. Gender markers belong to the most salient features of North-Brabantish, but with a process of dialect levelling well on its way for at least fifty years, knowledge of lexical gender is fading away. This study delves into these variation patterns. The results of a quantitative analysis of written questionnaires (mainly filled out by elderly dialect speakers, N=700) triggered us to conduct a small in-depth study of speech data from adolescents in the Eindhoven region (N=15). Based on these data, we argue that there is a high level of heterogeneity when it comes to adnominal gender marking. In this paper, we aim at describing and categorizing the various types of variation. The data includes omissions of the traditional Brabantish masculine gender marking, indicating that speakers are converging towards Standard Dutch. However, the data also reveals that in 30% of all utterances speakers apply gender marking in multiple ways. We find three types of variation: 1) masculine gender marking is only partly applied in comparison to the traditional rules of dialect grammar (compromise-constructions), 2) masculine gender markers appear in noun groups where they should not appear according to the dialect grammar (e.g. feminine, neuter, plural), so-called hyperdialectisms, and 3) speakers use innovative gender marking constructions: accumulate forms with two masculine suffixes, so-called hypermarkings. Based on previous research, we argue that typical dialect features, such as gender markers, are part of a regional speech style and play an important role in identity formation. As shibboleths of such a speech style, gender markers are VOL. 72, NO. 1, 2020 TAAL EN TONGVAL 70 over-generalized by speakers who want to profile themselves as 'genuinely' Brabantish. Also, individual patterns of gender marking indicate that salience in non-canonical sentence structures (e.g. focus) might be an important factor when it comes to emphasizing a deviation from the standard language, in line with (regional) identity construction through the use of shibboleths. Future research is necessary to validate these initial findings.
Language & Communication
This paper investigates the role of local dialect forms and other semiotic signs in languagecultu... more This paper investigates the role of local dialect forms and other semiotic signs in languagecultural practices on social media in the southern Dutch province North Brabant. Although dialect use is severely decreasing in this area, we find abundant dialect features in present-day media productions, but these are not simply some last remains. By conducting a qualitative discourse analysis of a carnivalesque music video (2020), we argue that non-linguistic resources and co-occurring dialect features are enregistered as recognizably 'Brabantish' for the purpose of indexing place-based identities. Moreover, we show that reproduction on TikTok (2021) takes place through recontextualization and indexical stance-taking.
Genootschap Onze Taal, 2021
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Language and Communication, 2023
This paper investigates the role of local dialect forms and other semiotic signs in languagecultu... more This paper investigates the role of local dialect forms and other semiotic signs in languagecultural practices on social media in the southern Dutch province North Brabant. Although dialect use is severely decreasing in this area, we find abundant dialect features in present-day media productions, but these are not simply some last remains. By conducting a qualitative discourse analysis of a carnivalesque music video (2020), we argue that non-linguistic resources and co-occurring dialect features are enregistered as recognizably 'Brabantish' for the purpose of indexing place-based identities. Moreover, we show that reproduction on TikTok (2021) takes place through recontextualization and indexical stance-taking.
Brabants. Kwartaalblad over Brabanders en hun taal, Mar 1, 2021
Brabants. Kwartaalblad over Brabanders en hun taal, Sep 1, 2021
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Books by Jos Swanenberg
MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION by Jos Swanenberg
Papers by Jos Swanenberg