The objective of this study is the analysis and evaluation of linguistic variables in the intercultural social life of persons in regional and urban areas in Belgium. The study focusses on two goals. It investigates the relationship between language competence, language attitudes and social characteristics of rooted and immigrant persons in Belgium and their feelings of identity, and analyses the relation between socioeconomic categories and language by emphasizing the role of English as a lingua franca.
The study uses empirical methods from several different disciplines and modifies them beyond the interdisciplinary background. For the empirical part of the study two methods were developed. An "adjusted survey of multipliers" served to collect data with the help of different persons (multipliers) in social relevant situations of groups in contact and focussed on a representative data base. Furthermore, an "analysis of power and resources for language contact situations" helped to compare social groups by the two criteria of socio-economic power and multilingualism. For the theoretical part an "ecological linguistic model of components of intercultural social life" was developed. This model determines five components relevant for a multicultural society: sociodemographic factors or criteria profiles (multilingualism etc.), language attitudes, language use, clusters of identity and social behaviour.
The analysis is based on data from 1190 questionnaires. They were collected during three months of field work in Belgium (a total of 2000 questionnaires had been distributed). This representative corpus permits the intercultural comparison of social-linguistic groups. Because of the social roles of the groups and their attributes as, e.g., economic success, this comparison produces results which are crucial for our understanding of multicultural societies.
Contents: analysis of power and resources, communicative competence, contact linguistics, criteria profiles, data analysis by computer, empiric sociology identity, language attitudes, language behaviour, language conflict, language ecology, lingua franca, multilingualism