Research in Dutch linguistics revolves around a common theme: languages and multilingualism in the Belgian community context and is broken down into several topics:

• the context and outcomes of bilingual education (CLIL or immersion) cf. ARC project "Assessing CLIL: linguistic, congnitive and socio-educational factors" (Laurence Mettewie and Luk Van Mensel);
• the impact on language acquisition of socio-affective factors (attitudes, motivation, emotions) and contact situations in the school environment (Laurence Mettewieand Ilias Vierendeels) ;
• the multilingual needs of Brussels companies and the resulting costs (Laurence Mettewie and Luk Van Mensel);
• language dynamics within multilingual families (Luk Van Mensel);
• the language landscape as revealing the relationships between linguistic communities (Laurence Mettewie and Luk Van Mensel) ;
• the discourse around multilingualism and language policies in Belgium (Ilias Vierendeels);
• teacher support in differentiating modern language courses (Laurence Mettewie and Caroline Depuis). Read more

The Dutch Unit's literary research focuses on the period 1860-1940. Preferred topics are:

• Early feminism in novels, letters and diaries (Elisabeth Leijnse and Myriam Carlier);
• The theory of biography (Elisabeth Leijnse);
• Maurice Maeterlinck: a biography written in Dutch is in preparation (Elisabeth Leijnse) ;
• The biography of Dutch feminists Cécile and Elsa de Jong van Beek en Donk, the book Cécile en Elsa, strijdbare freules (Amsterdam 2015) has been awarded in the Netherlands the Biografieprijs 2016 and Libris Geschiedenis Prijs 2016 (Elisabeth Leijnse) ;
• Jewish literature in the Netherlands; birth of anti-Semitism in France and the Netherlands (Elisabeth Leijnse).

Students who, after their course at UNamur, would like to prepare a dissertation or doctoral thesis around one of the themes mentioned above and with Elisabeth Leijnse and/or Laurence Mettewie as (co-)promoter are asked to get in touch with them by e-mail.

For further information about research in the fields of languages and humanities, and more generally at UNamur, visit the research institute NaLTT.