Rik Vosters

Rik Vosters is a professor of Dutch linguistics and sociolinguistics at the Faculty of Languages and Humanities of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research interests center around the areas of historical sociolinguistics, language variation and change, and language planning and policy, often from a historical perspective, but also focusing on minoritized languages and heritage languages in Europe today. Prof. Vosters has led several research projects on language policy and planning, the standardization of Dutch, the influence of languages such as French and English on Dutch, and language history from below. He is an editor of the Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, and coordinates a research network in historical sociolinguistics, bringing together scholars from ca. 20 international partner universities across Europe and the United States. In addition, Prof. Vosters is a life-time member of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, and he is currently also the chairman of the Council for the Dutch Language and Letters of the Dutch Language Union.

Research Expertise: sociolinguistics, heritage languages, language planning and policy

Research Methodlogy: corpus linguistics, language policy research, language variation and change