Cultural and language policy as factors of language planning : Westflemish language

This research project aims at contributing to an innovating (socio)linguistic analysis of language standardization mechanisms during the l9th century. Close examination of an extended body of texts written in Brugge during the last third of the 19th century and pertaining to three different domains (cultural associations, workers unions and the city adminstration) has allowed for new insights in the linguistic development of Dutch during that period and, more in particular, in the role played by the language particularist movement. It stresses a dimension of our understanding of language evolution and language planning underestimated so far, viz. the influence of religious fundamentalism (ultramontanism) and the use it made of linguistic means to achieve its goals.