Genderverwijzingen in beroepsnamen in het Nederlands: de keuze tussen genderneutraal en gendergemarkeerd taalgebruik

Details

Supervisors

Degand, Liesbeth

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation germaniques, à finalité spécialisée: langues des affaires

Abstract

enLanguage inclusiveness is a hotly debated topic around the world, and the Dutch language is no exception. The various language authorities are having a hard time deciding between neutralising or differentiating the language. For this reason, it was considered relevant to explore the issue of the use and perception of job titles in terms of gender references in Dutch. In order to answer the question, “Is Dutch a neutral or gendered language?” this thesis focuses on two different axes: a corpus analysis of the Dutch language and a survey on the perception of gender references in job titles in Dutch. Although these need to be qualified, the results of the survey and of the corpus analysis show that Dutch tends towards the neutralization of the language. Despite the existence of feminine forms of job titles, masculine forms seem to be widely perceived as referring to both sexes and are also used as such.