معرفی
Rik Vosters is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), where he leads the Brussels Centre for Language Studies. His academic career spans over 15 years with consistent research output from 2008 to present, including 118 research publications and leadership of 31 research projects. He is deeply involved in historical sociolinguistics, particularly focusing on Dutch language history in Flanders and the Low Countries.
Dr. Vosters' research interests center on historical sociolinguistics, language standardization, orthography, and multilingualism across historical contexts. His work examines how language norms developed in Dutch-speaking regions, particularly focusing on failed standardization attempts, French influence on Dutch morphology, and heritage language maintenance in contemporary Brussels. He has pioneered corpus-based approaches to studying historical language variation, notably through projects like the Letters as Loot Corpus and the Historical Corpus of Dutch.
His recent publications reveal a growing focus on contemporary multilingualism in Brussels, particularly examining Spanish heritage language maintenance among immigrant communities. His research demonstrates a consistent thread connecting historical language processes with contemporary linguistic phenomena, showing how past language contact situations inform current multilingual dynamics.
- Agder Academy of Sciences and Letters (2019)
- Best poster award (2010)
- Lid Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal en Letteren (2021)
- Prijs taalkunde KANTL (2012)
Professor Vosters actively supervises PhD students, including Samantha Pérez Rodríguez's research on Heritage Spanish in Brussels. He leads multiple FWO-funded projects including CONI852: Sociolinguistics Circle, CLARIAH-VL+: paving the way for a SSH Open Science Cloud for Flanders, and FWOTM1261: Unveiling the unsuccessful: rethinking Haugen's model through the lens of failed standardization attempts in Dutch language history (1550-1850). His research grants consistently focus on historical sociolinguistics and language variation in Dutch-speaking regions.
He is a key member of the Brussels Interdisciplinary Research centre on Migration and Minorities (BIRMM) and leads the Historical Sociolinguistics Young Researchers Forum. His research team employs interdisciplinary approaches combining corpus linguistics, sociolinguistic theory, and historical analysis to investigate language change and variation across centuries.
