Creating Awareness of Pluricentricity at University Language Departments: A Case Study of Dutch

Abstract

Dutch is a pluricentric language: It is an official language in six countries spread over two continents. Its national varieties became recognized as officially accepted, equal varieties of the standard language in the 21st century. These recognized varieties are Belgian Dutch, Dutch Dutch, and Surinamese Dutch. We show that despite the official equal status of these varieties, Dutch Dutch remains the dominant variety and the relatively recent official pluricentric status of Dutch is not generally known to all language users. We discuss that this is still noticeable in textbooks used for advanced learners of Dutch at schools in the German federal state of Lower Saxony for example, but also in Dutch language teaching in general. It is thus of importance to create (even more) awareness amongst future teachers. For this reason, we propose a matrix to evaluate and implement awareness of the pluricentricity of Dutch at university language departments. We illustrate and discuss the application of this matrix in the Department of Dutch Studies at the University of Oldenburg, Germany.