"For Tina-meiden only!: The use of English in Dutch teenager magazine Tina

Abstract

In the Netherlands, the influence of English can be found in many different places, such as in print media, online media, and in higher education. This has sparked a debate on how this affects the Dutch language and society. This study investigates the use and function of English in Dutch teenager magazine Tina, since teenage language is “a prime source of information about linguistic change” (Eckert, 1997, as cited in Drange, 2009, p. 62). The issues are from 2000, 2009 and 2019. It adds to the study by van den Berg (2017), that focused on magazines directed at people of the age of fifty and over. Like van den Berg (2017)’s study, it builds on the work of Matras (2009), specifically his codeswitching – borrowing continuum. The results of this study show that the found items of English origin have decreased over the years. The vast majority of these items are borrowings on Matras’s (2009) scale. It is suggested that English words are most of the time used because they have become the common expression in Dutch (borrowings). Codeswitches are suggested to be used mainly for ornamental reasons rather than functional reasons. Another suggestion is that the use of English can even be considered affected, since English has become normalised in Dutch discourse and is therefore not exclusive, as it used to be.