This article deals with the roles and functions of dialect, Dutch and French for Flemish upper class writers in the 19th century.It argues against the common opinion that the linguistic situation at that time in Flanders can be characterized by rigid dichotomies such as formal French versus informal dialectal/regional Dutch, and/or upper class French versus middle and lower class (dialectal) Dutch.Analyses of original upper class documents from various archives in the town of Bruges lead to the assertion that the actual choices between the available linguistic resources were to a considerable extent dependent on contextual and pragmatic considerations. Examples taken from town council records, high society correspondence and election propaganda will illustrate the close link between variety choice and the wish to include/exclude certain social groups in distinct communicative settings.
In the introduction we have commented on a number of themes or leitmotifs of standardization which can be observed across the individual case studies collected in this volume. The existence of persistent historical commonalities between standard languages has been a central motivation for the construction of cross-linguistic models and the general interest in a comparative, synthetic approach to the study of language standardization. In this concluding section we would like to outline some broad directions for further research in the ªeld of "comparative standardology". Language standardization as creation and convergence In the popular imagination the history of standard languages is intricately connected to the activities of individuals and institutions. Indeed, the popular linguistic pantheon is ªlled with the names of the "standardizers" who set out to regulate and codify their native language, and standardization is-at least in part-seen as the direct consequence and result of the rational, goal-oriented actions carried out by these individual and collective social actors. 1 Not only is it necessary (as already noted in the introduction) to carefully consider the various and sometimes con-¶icting motivations of these actors (e.g. cultural aspirations, administrative uniªcation, economic advantage, political strategy, etc.), but their complex and manifold national and also trans-national interactions and collaborations deserve further attention. In this context it is worth mentioning the approach of De Groof (e.g. 2002b) which attempts-with regard to Belgian language history-a systematic cross-tabulation of the goals and motivations of a large number of social actors, as well as Watts' (1999) more ethnographically inspired reconstruction of the "discourse communities" of eighteenth century English grammarians.
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