PhD research on ‘Dunglish’

The Dutch: just how good is their command of English? With English rapidly gaining ground as the language of international communication, native Dutch speakers often find themselves having to write texts in English. But are they truly equipped to do so? How good is their English, and to what extent is it influenced by their native language, Dutch? Taalcentrum-VU is currently funding research on this topic by PhD student Lotte Tavecchio.

Dunglish

English spoken by native Dutch speakers can often be characterized as ‘Dunglish’: stilted, awkward English that is heavily influenced by Dutch grammar and word choice. Lotte Tavecchio is attempting to uncover the truth behind the Dunglish myth. Are Dutch and English really so different in terms of structure? If so, how?  She is also exploring the ways in which native English readers react to Dunglish. Are English-language texts written by Dutch people really more difficult to read?

Research with practical applications

Together with two student assistants, Lotte is identifying the differences between Dutch and English. Their work focuses on a large collection of texts from various genres, such as newspaper articles, academic publications, literary texts, and brochures. The sentences contained in this corpus are analyzed in minute detail, allowing the researchers to establish the differences between the two languages – and among the various text types – when it comes to sentence structure.

This study may well have practical implications for the design of English courses for native Dutch speakers. After all, the ability to clearly identify specific features of Dunglish can help language trainers to teach their students to speak and write better English.