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Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning
Nika Stefan (l) en Suzanne Dekker at the International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB 15).

Nika Stefan (l) en Suzanne Dekker at the International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB 15).

Stefan and Dekker give presentation on ISB15 on large-scale Frisian language research

Language and multilingualism

Mercator

Last week, Nika Stefan and Suzanne Dekker travelled to Donostia (San Sebastian) for the International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB 15).

There, they gave a joint presentation on their work on the latest version of the Language Survey, a large-scale study of the language skills, attitudes towards language, and language use and behaviour of the inhabitants of Fryslân. This study was conducted in collaboration with the Fryslân Planning Agency. The report is expected to be published at the end of the year.

About the Taalsurvey project

This project is a continuation of the Frisian language surveys that have been carried out by the Fryske Akademy (Pietersen, 1967; Gorter et al., 1984; Gorter en Jonkman, 1995; Klinkenberg et al., 2018). The current project should be considered as a pilot study and is being carried out in collaboration with Planbureau Fryslân. Within the pilot, there will be an investigation on the question if Panel Fryslân, the citizen panel of the planning bureau, can be deployed to carry out future language surveys in an efficient manner. The panel consists of a representative sample of more than 8.000 inhabitants of Fryslân that have been selected across municipalities.

Within this project, the focus will be on the collection of data on language proficiency, language attitudes and language use of the inhabitants of Fryslân. The original questions about language attitudes have been replaced within this project by attitude questions from recent international language attitude research. This way, we will draw up a more complete overview of the language attitude of the inhabitants of Fryslân.

The future goal is to carry out, next to language surveys, a bi-annual Language Monitor in collaboration with Planbureau Fryslân and other partners, with which (amongst other) changes in language attitudes and behaviour can be monitored. On this basis, recommendations can be made in order to promote the vitality of the Frisian language.

 

 

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