Home Linguistics & Semiotics Chapter 3. Observing Eurolects
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 3. Observing Eurolects

The case of Netherlandic Dutch
  • Gert de Sutter and Fee De Bock
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Search
Observing Eurolects
This chapter is in the book Observing Eurolects

Abstract

Building on the textual data in the Dutch part of Eurolect Observatory Multilingual Corpus, consisting of 660 texts (3.7M words) in corpus A (directives) and 504 texts (4M tokens) in corpus B (implementation laws), we investigate the extent to which the language of European directives shines through in (Netherlandic) Dutch national law. In order to do so, we extracted several EU-rooted phenomena, contact-induced features, and intralinguistic variants and analyzed the distribution of these features by means of bivariate and multivariate statistics, so as to discern meaningful patterns in the data. The results enable us to determine whether Dutch implementation law exhibits linguistic traces of the so-called Eurolect. The results show similarities between national law implementations and EU directives as well as differences. One of the most striking patterns that emerge across different language domains (lexicon, morphosyntax, discourse) is that implementation laws contain much more formal linguistic features, thereby ignoring clear writing recommendations.

Abstract

Building on the textual data in the Dutch part of Eurolect Observatory Multilingual Corpus, consisting of 660 texts (3.7M words) in corpus A (directives) and 504 texts (4M tokens) in corpus B (implementation laws), we investigate the extent to which the language of European directives shines through in (Netherlandic) Dutch national law. In order to do so, we extracted several EU-rooted phenomena, contact-induced features, and intralinguistic variants and analyzed the distribution of these features by means of bivariate and multivariate statistics, so as to discern meaningful patterns in the data. The results enable us to determine whether Dutch implementation law exhibits linguistic traces of the so-called Eurolect. The results show similarities between national law implementations and EU directives as well as differences. One of the most striking patterns that emerge across different language domains (lexicon, morphosyntax, discourse) is that implementation laws contain much more formal linguistic features, thereby ignoring clear writing recommendations.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Acknowledgements xiii
  5. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  6. Chapter 2. The Eurolect Observatory Multilingual Corpus 27
  7. Chapter 3. Observing Eurolects 47
  8. Chapter 4. Observing Eurolects 63
  9. Chapter 5. Observing Eurolects 93
  10. Chapter 6. Observing Eurolects 121
  11. Chapter 7. Observing Eurolects 147
  12. Chapter 8. Observing Eurolects 169
  13. Chapter 9. Observing Eurolects 199
  14. Chapter 10. Observing Eurolects 243
  15. Chapter 11. Observing Eurolects 267
  16. Chapter 12. Observing Eurolects 295
  17. Chapter 13. Observing Eurolects 329
  18. Chapter 14. Conclusions 369
  19. Subject index 393
  20. Language index 395
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.86.03des

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Acknowledgements xiii
  5. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  6. Chapter 2. The Eurolect Observatory Multilingual Corpus 27
  7. Chapter 3. Observing Eurolects 47
  8. Chapter 4. Observing Eurolects 63
  9. Chapter 5. Observing Eurolects 93
  10. Chapter 6. Observing Eurolects 121
  11. Chapter 7. Observing Eurolects 147
  12. Chapter 8. Observing Eurolects 169
  13. Chapter 9. Observing Eurolects 199
  14. Chapter 10. Observing Eurolects 243
  15. Chapter 11. Observing Eurolects 267
  16. Chapter 12. Observing Eurolects 295
  17. Chapter 13. Observing Eurolects 329
  18. Chapter 14. Conclusions 369
  19. Subject index 393
  20. Language index 395
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 9.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/scl.86.03des/html
Scroll to top button