Acceso usuarios
Rutten Gijsbert
Neutrality is a crucial aspect of lay and expert definitions of standard language and of the standard language ideology. Smakman (2012, The definition of the standard language: a survey in seven countries. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 218. 25–58) shows that this applies to the Dutch language area, in particular. Since linguistic forms are not inherently neutral, neutrality needs to be constructed in discourse. Tying in with recent research on language myths, the present article aims to historicize the myth of neutrality by showing when and why it came into existence and which function it fulfilled in public and academic discourses on language. An analysis of Dutch metalanguage from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century shows that the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century concept of neutrality as a shared space was gradually replaced by neutrality as unmarkedness. The first type leaves room for variation and considers standard forms as additions to existing repertoires. The second type is absolute and considers standard forms as the only true linguistic forms. The historical development outlined in this article entails a conceptual shift from neutrality as a shared space to neutrality as unmarkedness. The decades around 1800 constitute the decisive period in this shift, when linguistic nationalism came into existence as a side effect of the rise of nationalism as a political ideology and of the formation of the modern (western) European nation-states.
