Two types of neutrality

Two types of neutrality should be distinguished. My argument will be that the first type was supplemented and often even eclipsed by the second type in the decades around 1800. The first type I refer to as neutrality as a shared space. The second type is neutrality as unmarkedness.

In the case of neutrality as a shared space, linguistic forms or varieties are considered neutral in the sense that they are shared forms used for interdialectal

2. The first edition came out in 1984 (ed. by G. Geerts, W. Haeseryn, J. de Rooij & M. C. van den Toorn), the second and strongly revised and expanded edition is from 1997 (ed. by W. Haeseryn, K. Romijn, G. Geerts, J. de Rooij & M. C. van den Toorn). I used the 2002 online version, also called E-ANS, which is the electronic version of the 1997 edition. The E-ANS does not have page numbers, only section numbers.

communication. There is little historical evidence of how this may have taken place in oral communication. In writing, however, it is clear from (western) European languages that supralocalisation has existed throughout history. Supralocalised forms are not neutral, as they have specific and distinct regional and/or social origins. However, they can come to be considered as shared forms by language users with very different regional and/or social backgrounds. In historical meta-linguistic discourse, there is often widespread awareness that the forms have a par-ticular background. The neutral or shared forms are regarded as additional forms, and the neutral variety as an additional variety for specific purposes. Salmons (2013: 264–265), discussing the history of German, stresses that the developing standard languages did not usually replace existing varieties, but merely added another layer to the sociolinguistic space. The neutral variety is often marked for use in specific registers such as sermons and literature. In some cases, deliberate koine constructions occur, for example in Bible translations where the aim is to reach the largest possible audience. Such koine constructions may involve erasure of regionally marked forms. They can also include the conscious and simultaneous use of forms from multiple regions. The former is an example of neutrality through erasure, depending on the salience of certain regional forms. The latter is an exam-ple of neutrality as patchwork.

Figure 1 presents a highly simplified visualisation of the most basic example of neutrality as a shared space, indicating regions A and B with varieties A and B respectively, which develop an additional variety, or rather a pool of forms that tend to co-occur in the case of communication between language users from regions A and B. These forms are not necessarily drawn from either A or B – often one of the two will be dominant – as new forms may develop in contact situations (e.g.

Kerswill 2002).

B A

Shared space

Figure 1. Neutrality as a shared space

Neutrality as a shared space is historically present in many European language ar-eas. Obviously, this type of neutrality is not neutral at all, but a discursive construc-tion feeding on the direcconstruc-tion of processes of supralocalisaconstruc-tion. Its lack of neutrality becomes particularly apparent when it is combined with the ideology of the hierar-chisation of varieties, when, in other words, a process of verticalisation (Mattheier 2003) takes place, according to which one variety is deemed better than other. In the same vein, Lippi-Green (2012: 66–71) talks about language subordination. Often, the supposedly neutral form or variety is considered better, in one way or another, than forms or varieties with a more restricted geographical or social span. Figure 2 presents the verticalised version of neutrality as a shared space. Despite the apparent hierarchisation of forms and varieties, a general awareness often remains that the supposedly neutral forms or varieties are but one layer of all linguistic practices in the language area.

B A

Shared space

Figure 2. Neutrality as a shared space – ‘verticalised’

It is in the decades around 1800 that neutrality as a shared space develops into the second type of neutrality as unmarkedness, a discursive move as a result of which the supralocalised forms are no longer just the forms that are marked for use in interdialectal communication. They lose their specific application and are constructed as unmarked instead. They become the forms that go unnoticed, the common forms, the standard options. By implication, other forms and varieties that were previously in use alongside the shared forms and varieties are now perceived as uncommon and non-standard, for which reason they should be avoided. Figure 3 visualises this discursive operation. A and B are erased from the discourse and lose their right to exist. In reality, they often continue to be used, and they are therefore placed between brackets (Figure 3a). Users of A and B are expected to orient to the supposedly unmarked centre, and they are ultimately expected to give up A and B.

Figure 3b describes the desired end goal, with all language users being subsumed by and orienting themselves towards the so-called unmarked variety, and having lost their awareness of previously existing varieties.

Neutrality as a shared space historically precedes neutrality as unmarkedness, which has been the dominant type ever since it came into existence. The trans-formation into unmarkedness requires an intriguing, even paradoxical discursive

(A) (B)

Unmarked

Figure 3a. Neutrality as unmarkedness

Unmarked

Figure 3b. Neutrality as unmarkedness (end goal)

operation. After all, it requires users of A and B to discard the forms characteristic of A and B, and to adopt the view that the unmarked forms are not just additions to their verbal repertoires, but essentially the only forms that are suitable for com-munication. It requires them, in other words, to abandon the forms and varieties they are familiar with, to essentialise the standard variety, and to adopt the folk view of the linguistic system as outlined by Preston (i.a. 2002), according to which dialects are considered defective and degenerate varieties of The Language. In the following sections, I will argue that this metalinguistic tour de force eventually comes down to accepting that the language people have used from birth and have learnt from their parents (say A, or B), is not their actual mother tongue. Instead, their real mother tongue is the neutral variety, from which it follows that there are people who need explicit instruction in the mother tongue in primary and secondary education.

Here, it becomes clear how a discourse of anonymity can intersect with notions of authenticity. Whereas the argument is mainly centred around neutrality and ano-nymity, as will become clear in Section 6.5, it is simultaneously maintained that the neutral variety is also the true mother tongue of the members of the Dutch nation.