We are very happy to announce the publication of the textbook on Historical Sociolinguistics (CUP) by Prof. Rutten and Prof. Vosters! Description: Historical Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society in its historical dimension. This is the first textbook to introduce this vibrant field, based on examples and case studies …
PhD defense Yasmin Crombez
On Monday, 2 February 2026, Yasmin Crombez obtained her PhD following an excellent defense of her dissertation entitled “Van het beloofde land: een historisch-sociolinguïstisch onderzoek naar het Belgisch-Nederlands als heritage taal in Noord-Amerika.” Her work was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wim Vandenbussche and Prof. Dr. Rik Vosters (VUB). Congratulations, Dr. Crombez!!
New publication “Heritage Spanish in Brussels” by Samantha Pérez Rodríguez, An Vande Casteele and Rik Vosters
A new article by Samantha Pérez Rodríguez, together with her supervisors An Vande Casteele and Rik Vosters, has just been published in Spanish in Context! Titled “Heritage Spanish in Brussels: Case study on coda /s/ production by Andalusian women”, it examines coda /s/ weakening in Andalusian Spanish as a heritage language by analyzing the speech …
New publication “Newspapers as a window into language beliefs of the past” by Yasmin Crombez
Yasmin Crombez recently contributed a chapter titled “Newspapers as a window into language beliefs of the past: Language contact and conflict in Flemish-American press” to the volume Dutch and Contact Linguistics: The Dutch language outside the Low Countries. In this chapter, she explores the language ideologies of Flemish emigrants in the United States, with a …
Blog post – Getuigen aan het woord?
Dr. Magda Serwadczak recently published a piece about her research on orality, literacy and entextualization in historical criminal records (1700-1900) for the OUTLAW-project. You can read more about it on the project’s website: https://outlawtales.blog/2025/06/26/onderzoek-getuigen-aan-het-woord/
Sixteenth Heritage Language Research Institute
Our team member and doctoral researcher Qiqi Huang represented our team at the Sixteenth Heritage Language Research Institute in Madison, Wisconsin. She presented her research on heritage Chinese with a poster presentation entitled: “Maintenance and Shift among Chinese Heritage Speakers in Flanders” Qiqi Huang, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
VUB Honorary Doctorate Terttu Nevalainen
On Friday, 6 June, at the stunning Vaudeville Theatre in Brussels, Prof. Dr. Em. Terttu Nevalainen received an honorary doctorate from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She was honored for her groundbreaking contributions to the field of historical sociolinguistics – particularly her pioneering work in large-scale corpus building, her innovative use of quantitative methods to study …
New publication “Spanish as Immigrant Minority Language in Brussels” by Samantha Pérez Rodríguez, An Vande Casteele and Rik Vosters
Samantha Pérez Rodríguez’ paper entitled “Spanish as Immigrant Minority Language in Brussels: A Pilot Study on Maintenance and Vitality” was recently published in Languages. Co-authored with her supervisors, An Vande Casteele and Rik Vosters, the paper presents an exploratory study on the language practices of the Hispanic communities in Brussels, examining patterns of language transmission, …
Keynote at the Estonian Applied Linguistics Conference
On April 24-25, Prof. Rik Vosters was a keynote speaker at the 22nd Estonian Applied Linguistics Conference. In his talked entitled Standardization and prescriptivism in Dutch: past, present and future, he delved into the history of standardization in the Dutch language as a basis for reflection on the present and future of standardization practice. …
Dr. Lismont in de media!
Het doctoraatsonderzoek van Eline Lismont kreeg de afgelopen weken heel wat media-aandacht! Het verscheen in De Standaard onder de titel “Met regels roei je geen taalfouten uit (en dat is oké)”– voor de volledige versie van het artikel, zie ook: Lismont_De _Standaard. Daarnaast werd haar onderzoek gedeeld via Bruzz (VUB-onderzoekster bestudeert evolutie van het Nederlands …