Ceci n'est pas une Tussentaal: Evoking Standard and Vernacular Language Through Mixed Dutch in Flemish Telecinematic Discourse

This paper argues that the use of mixed Dutch, the speech style that Flemish linguists have come to name tussentaal (literally 'inter-language') and which is made up of dialect and standard features, can index meanings conventionally associated with dialect and Standard Dutch, depending on the linguistic ecology in which it occurs. Consequently, and in contrast with current explanations that attribute context-independent social meaning to tussentaal, we argue that its meaning needs to be identified relative to the unfolding interaction in particular contexts of use. Using a corpus of Flemish telecinematic discourse, we suggest that this finding calls for a renewed appreciation of tussentaal in relation to burgeoning hypotheses of destandardization