Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde

Maarten C. van den Toorn

Kloeke en het normendebat

Abstract -- G.G. Kloeke has always been interested in the role of social differences in language change. In 1951, he tried to apply his linguistic insights to an ongoing debate on language norms within the Dutch society in a pamphlet called Gezag en norm bij het gebruik van verzorgd Nederlands (Authority and norm in the use of polished Dutch). In this text, Kloeke argued against the use of terms like Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (ABN, General Civilised Dutch) to describe the standard language, and defended the term verzorgd Nederlands (polished Dutch) instead. The argumentation in the pamphlet is less than succesful and its value for current debates on similar issues is questionable at best; there is still no generally accepted alternative for ABN. On the other hand, some of Kloeke's insights into the social nature of language norms underlying his pamphlet are still valuable to present-day linguists.

TNTL 121-3 (september 2005), 288-296