Variation and standardisation in the 19th century Dutch.

This proposal should allow for an analysis of texts produced in Brugge during the second half of the 19th century in order to come to a (socio)linguïstic description of standardization mechanisms in 19th centuryDutch. The following domains will be investigated : administration ( city and overall), middle class cultural associations, labor organisations, language activists(e.g."particularists") and the part played by French.All aspects of the historiography of language will be addressed,i.e. history of language stucture, history of language use, history of language contact and history of language consciousness. Consequently there will be a linguistic and sociolinguistic part, focusing on lexical analysis , grammatical and textlinguistic analysis;"language in society" and observance of norms.