A vanishing voice.
Unlearning your dialect is the price you pay for a better future.
As a little human, you go from babbling to small words, from words to sentences and from sentences to conversations. The most important people in your life teach you how to speak, interweaving their speech features such as accents in dialects into your way of speaking. By this they transfer parts of their culture, heritage and identity into yours. It gives you a feeling of belonging, warmth and home. But when these people who taught you your dialect vanish, do the words we hold on so dearly disappear with them? Will it only be a memory?
Dialect is a linguistic feature that enriches your identity and portrays the proudness of your heritage. Although this is a beautiful thing, there are many biases about speaking dialect that have an effect on how easy your path in life will be. People are seen as dumb, antisocial, poor or lesser than people that speak “General Civilized Dutch”. This has an effect on the chances they get on the labor market, social situations and other chances they get within society, and therefor is discrimination based on linguistic features.
To get more in dept about this part of my research I will speak to creative copywriter and director Susan Zwijgers. She was born in Brabant and has lived there her whole youth. After graduating the Willem de Kooning Academy she went to the creative center of advertising in the Netherlands, Amsterdam. When applying for jobs, she encountered several biases about her speech. Due to rejection after rejection, she decided to actively unlearn her dialect. After this she finally got her dream job, but at what cost? I wonder if she regrets unlearning the dialect and what biases she encountered in her job search.
The educational system is very aware of this problem and instead of finding a way to let 2 languages live next to each other, they encourage to unlearn your dialect which indirectly means losing a part of your identity. Also, people who want to grow on the social ladder and apply for a higher job, try to unlearn their dialect themselves to increase their chances for the position. This way dialects are vanishing and are less and less spoken by the current and next generations.
To highlight the different perspectives in the education system about this topic, I speak with 2 primary school teachers. One in favor of using dialect in the classroom, the other against it. What are their arguments and to they think there is a middle ground?
The goal of this research is to show how ridiculous it is to think that speaking a dialect negatively influences people their intellect, creativity, wealth or social skills in any way and that dialect can live next to the existing curriculum so that we can preserve all these unique dialects. I want people to see the value of being unique and to preserve that trait.
Bibliography:
NOS op 3. “Dealen Met Je Dialect: Op Je Werk | NOS Op 3.” YouTube, 22 Sept. 2017,www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kc2uPZ2AJE.
“Waarom Hebben We Vooroordelen Over Dialecten En Accenten? - BNNVARA.” BNNVARA, www.bnnvara.nl/artikelen/waarom-hebben-we-vooroordelen-over-dialecten-en- accenten.
“Dealen Met Je Dialect: Trots Op Je Taal | NOS Op 3.” YouTube, 24 Sept. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykQ6twtLMw0.
“Steeds Minder Mensen Spreken Dialect, Gaat Het Verdwijnen?” DPG Media Privacy Gate, www.ad.nl/play/productie/steeds-minder-mensen-spreken-dialect-gaat-het- verdwijnen-328820.
“Dealen Met Je Dialect: Uitschelden En Uitlachen | Nos Op 3.” YouTube, YouTube, 23 Sept. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRnU8ZII5ZU.