Secondary Language Attitudes In and Around Brussels

Abstract. Secondary language attitudes are examined in the Brussels conurbation, in the communes of the Flemish periphery of Brussels and in the communes with linguistic facilities, especially by an analysis of a representative number of advertisements in the yellow pages of the Brussels region, focusing on various types of business. Our survey compares the situation of 1973 with these of 1987 and 1995, which means that the study covers a period of almost a quarter of a century. The interpretation of this qualitative and quantitative analysis of more than 7,000 advertisements - monolingual (French or Flemish) as well as bilingual - allows us to formulate a number of conclusions concerning the evolution of the relative position of French and Flemish in the Brussels conurbation, the Flemish communes of the Brussels periphery and the communes with linguistic facilities - always in terms of secondary language attitudes.