Indexing traditional and modern professional values: T/V-pronouns in Flemish New Work Order job interviews
Traditional professional values are complemented by more modern ones in the “New Work Order”-context, roughly marking a shift from hierarchy to (seeming) egalitarianism and from formality to informality. We investigate the pragmatic uses of T/V-pronouns in job interviews in relation to this transformation. More particularly, we zoom in on the Flemish case, which is especially rich, given that next to V-forms, there is a double-barreled T-system with standard versus colloquial T-forms. Exploring twenty-one authentic job interviews using exploratory statistical techniques, we found that V-forms, emblematic of traditional values, are nearly absent in our data. In turn, the variation attested in the use of T-forms by recruiters highlights local meaning-making, prompting questions about the alignment of these forms with evolving indexical values and workplace norms.
Publication history
Table of contents
- Abstract
- Keywords
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Research questions
- 3.Data and bird’s eye view on the analytical approach
- 4.T2/V-Pronoun usage in Flemish job interviews
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusions
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Research questions
- 3.Data and bird’s eye view on the analytical approach
- 4.T2/V-Pronoun usage in Flemish job interviews
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusions
- Notes
- Funding
- Notes
- References
- Appendix
- Address for correspondence
- Biographical notes
1.Introduction
1.1The evolving New Work Order Context and its relation to job interviews
In the rapidly evolving landscape of the New Work Order, a shift is discernible from the traditional “old economy” to the emerging “new economy” (Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996Gee, James Paul, Glynda Hull, and Colin Lankshear 1996 The New Work Order: Behind the Language of the New Capitalism. Saint Leonards: Allen and Unwin.). The conventional, hierarchical structures of the past have given way to seemingly equal worker-partnerships between employers and employees. Consequently, the concept of “professionalism” has evolved: in the old economy, it was often equated with the ability to follow instructions, be disciplined and respect hierarchical structure (Hull 2001Hull, Glynda 2001 “Constructing Working Selves: Silicon Valley Assemblers Meet the New Work Order.” Anthropology of Work Review 22 (1): 17–22. ). Yet, in the New Work Order, the allegedly empowered workers are “asked to invest their hearts, minds, and bodies fully in their work” (Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996Gee, James Paul, Glynda Hull, and Colin Lankshear 1996 The New Work Order: Behind the Language of the New Capitalism. Saint Leonards: Allen and Unwin., 7), which entails a deeply personal commitment to their professional roles. Their personalities have become integral to their skill set, making it “professional to be personal” (Scheuer 2001Scheuer, Jann 2001 “Recontextualization and Communicative Styles in Job Interviews.” Discourse Studies 3 (2): 223–48. , 238). Within this framework, the prominence of a ‘right’ professional identity has become evident, in the sense that individuals who are unable to construct their identities in alignment with the New Work Order-demands face consequences in terms of “identity gatekeeping” (Van De Mieroop 2023Van De Mieroop, Dorien 2023 “Identity Gatekeeping in New Work Order Organizations: Quality Care Discussions During Performance Appraisal Interviews.” Pragmatics And Society 14 (4): 519–45. ). In essence, this transformative shift in professionalism underscores the integral role of identity construction — defined here from a social constructionist perspective, not as something that someone has, but as something that someone constructs in interaction with others (De Fina 2015De Fina, Anna 2015 “Narrative and Identities.” In The Handbook of Narrative Analysis, ed. by Anna De Fina, and Alexandra Georgakopoulou, 349–68. Malden: Wiley Blackwell. ) — for employees in the evolving New Work Order-context.
New Work Order job interviews (JIs) are an interesting locus to study this evolving context as these gatekeeping encounters make the construction of the ‘right’ identity especially crucial. It is thus not surprising that various studies have addressed this topic, and that various views — both traditional and modern — coexist. Corresponding to the traditional perspective, several studies suggest that JIs are highly formal and hierarchical gatekeeping encounters with a power imbalance favoring the recruiter (Akinnaso and Ajirotutu 1983Akinnaso, F. Niyi, and Cheryl Seabrook Ajirotutu 1983 “Performance and Ethnic Style in Job Interviews.” In Language and Social Identity, ed. by John J. Gumperz, 119–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; Kerekes 2006Kerekes, Julie 2006 “Winning an Interviewer’s Trust in a Gatekeeping Encounter.” Language in Society 35 (1): 27–57. , 2007 2007 “The Co-Construction of a Gatekeeping Encounter: An Inventory of Verbal Actions.” Journal of Pragmatics 39 (11): 1942–73. ). Social power influencing the interaction is evident for instance when interviewees adjust their speech style to align with that of their interviewers, thus engaging in linguistic accommodation to the person in charge (Jones et al. 2014Jones, Simon, Rachel Cotterill, Nigel Dewdney, Kate Muir, and Adam Joinson 2014 “Finding Zelig in Text: A Measure for Normalising Linguistic Accommodation.” In Proceedings of COLING 2014, 455–65. Dublin: Dublin City University and Association for Computational Linguistics. https://aclanthology.org/C14-1044; Willemyns et al. 1997Willemyns, Michael, Cynthia Gallois, Victor J. Callan, and Jeffery Pittam 1997 “Accent Accommodation in the Job Interview: Impact of Interviewer Accent and Gender.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16 (1): 3–22. ). However, other studies suggest a shift and emphasize that JIs are a “hybrid activity type” (Roberts and Sarangi 1999Roberts, Celia, and Srikant Sarangi 1999 “Hybridity in Gatekeeping Discourse: Issues of Practical Relevance for the Researcher.” In Talk, Work and Institutional Order: Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings, ed. by Srikant Sarangi, and Celia Roberts, 473–503. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. ) which are not solely formal or transactional but incorporate informal elements into their structure as well. Various studies, for instance, explore the occurrence of small talk in JIs, a phenomenon typically anticipated at the beginning and end of professional interactions (Komter 1991 1991 Conflict and Cooperation in Job Interviews: A Study of Talk, Tasks and Ideas. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Moreover, also the importance of modern personalized and egalitarian values is highlighted, including elements such as co-membership and trust, both professional and personal communicative styles, and a relaxation of the interactional rules typically associated with JIs (De Dijn and Van De Mieroop 2024 2024 “Interactionally Negotiating Power in ‘War for Talent’-Job Interviews.” Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice 18 (1): 1–33. ; Kerekes 2006Kerekes, Julie 2006 “Winning an Interviewer’s Trust in a Gatekeeping Encounter.” Language in Society 35 (1): 27–57. ; Scheuer 2001Scheuer, Jann 2001 “Recontextualization and Communicative Styles in Job Interviews.” Discourse Studies 3 (2): 223–48. ).
Previous linguistic research on JIs has predominantly focused on candidates in terms of examining their identity work as an attempt to successfully get through the gates of the organization (see e.g. Lipovsky 2006Lipovsky, Caroline 2006 “Candidates’ Negotiation of Their Expertise in Job Interviews.” Journal of Pragmatics 38 (8): 1147–74. ). This study, however, shifts its primary focus to the linguistic identity work of recruiters who can be seen as the embodiment of the company’s potential evolution to the New Work Order and who may thus, as professionals, be driven by either more traditional or more modern professional values in their interactions. In what is next, we argue that these identity constructions can be studied by focusing on the use of second person pronominal forms in JIs in general and why it is particularly interesting to study the rich and unique Belgian Dutch T/V system.
1.2Pronouns of address as emblematic markers of the potentially evolving New Work Order-context in Flemish JIs
In their seminal work, Brown and Gilman (1960)Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman 1960 “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.” In Styles in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–76. New York: MIT Press. analyzed second-person pronouns — using the labels “T” standing for Latin tu (second person pronoun singular, familiar) and “V” for vos (second person pronoun singular, formal). They argued that these forms used to be associated with the indexical fields of solidarity (T) and power (V), but that over time this pronominal system transitioned into a state of flux leading to uncertainty for language users (Vismans 2004Vismans, Roel 2004 “U and Non-U: Learning to Use Dutch Second-Person Pronouns.” Dutch Crossing 28 (1–2): 142–62. ). This phenomenon has attracted significant attention, amongst others in the high-stakes environment of JIs, where addressing others appropriately is paramount. For example, the advice literature recommends using the V-form — at least during the first stages of the interview,11.See e.g. https://www.werkstudent.nl/solliciteren-kun-je-leren-sollicitatietip-3-taalgebruik/; https://www.iamexpat.de/career/employment-guides-tools/german-job-interview-questions-answers; https://www.hellowork.com/fr-fr/guides/bavard-entretien-embauche.html and also scholarly research has pointed at the unsuitability of T-forms within the recruitment setting (De Hoop, Levshina and Segers 2023De Hoop, Helen, Natalia Levshina, and Marianne Segers 2023 “The Effect of the Use of T or V Pronouns in Dutch HR Communication.” Journal of Pragmatics 203: 96–109. ; Van Compernolle 2013Van Compernolle, Rémi A. 2013 “From Verbal Protocols to Cooperative Dialogue in the Assessment of Second Language Pragmatic Competence.” Intercultural Pragmatics 10 (1): 71–100. ). These findings are often attributed to the importance of traditional professional values such as politeness and formality (House and Kádár 2020House, Juliane, and Dániel Z. Kádár 2020 “T/V Pronouns in Global Communication Practices: The Case of IKEA Catalogues across Linguacultures.” Journal of Pragmatics 161: 1–15. ; Kinginger 2008Kinginger, Celeste 2008 “Language Learning in Study Abroad: Case Studies of Americans in France.” The Modern Language Journal 92: 1–124. ). Yet, in light of the changes in the New Work Order-context and its urge for a more egalitarian and a more informal professional style, one may anticipate that this will affect pronominal choice in JIs.
In particular, we argue that the Flemish second person singular pronominal system is a highly suitable research focus for the aims of this study as it is more complex than many other T/V systems. More specifically, next to having standard T-forms (nominal forms je/jij) and V-forms (nominal form u), there is an additional form in the T-system in Belgian Dutch spoken in the larger Brabantic part of Flanders, East-Flanders and Flemish Limburg, namely a colloquial form (nominal forms ge/gij) (for further details on this pronominal system, please refer to Section 3.3). This duality of T-forms in Flanders — which we will refer to as T2 — is emblematic of the diaglossic Flemish linguascape (Ghyselen 2016Ghyselen, Anne-Sophie 2016 “From Diglossia to Diaglossia: A West Flemish Case-Study.” In The Future of Dialects: Selected Papers from Methods in Dialectology XV, ed. by Marie-Hélène Côté, Remco Knooihuizen, and John Nerbonne, 35–62. Berlin: Language Science Press.; Vandekerckhove 2005 2005 “Belgian Dutch Versus Netherlandic Dutch: New Patterns of Divergence? On Pronouns of Address and Diminutives.” Multilingua 24 (4): 379–97. ). This situation is the result of an evolution that started as a standardization process throughout the 20th century where Flanders oriented towards the Netherlandic Dutch norm, resulting in a diglossic situation with dialects on the one hand, and the somewhat “foreign” Belgian Standard Dutch (BSD) on the other. Evolutions within the Belgian Dutch landscape eventually resulted in a layered, diaglossic situation with a substandard but superregional variety, often labeled Tussentaal or colloquial Belgian Dutch (CBD), found in between dialects and standard (for a discussion, see Vandekerckhove 2005 2005 “Belgian Dutch Versus Netherlandic Dutch: New Patterns of Divergence? On Pronouns of Address and Diminutives.” Multilingua 24 (4): 379–97. ). The colloquial ge/gij-forms are typically considered part of this endogenous Tussentaal in the Flemish context, while the standard je/jij-forms are exogenous to most regions, borrowed from Netherlandic Dutch.22.The je/jij-forms are exogenous to the larger Brabantic area, East-Flanders and Limburg, but endogenous to West-Flanders (Vandekerckhove 2005 2005 “Belgian Dutch Versus Netherlandic Dutch: New Patterns of Divergence? On Pronouns of Address and Diminutives.” Multilingua 24 (4): 379–97. ).
It is important to note that CBD is not necessarily considered to be a uniform language variety (Geeraerts and Van de Velde 2013Geeraerts, Dirk, and Hans Van de Velde 2013 “Supra-Regional Characteristics of Colloquial Dutch.” In Language and Space: Dutch, ed. by Frans Hinskens, and Johan Taeldeman, 532–56. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.), but that the distinct pronominal system for the second person singular is often considered as one of the most characteristic features giving it the status of “stereotype”-variable (Labov 1972Labov, William 1972 Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.) with a social significance which language users are often conscious of (Vandekerckhove 2004Vandekerckhove, Reinhild 2004 “Waar zijn je, jij en jou(w) gebleven? Pronominale aanspreekvormen in het gesproken Nederlands van Vlamingen.” In Taeldeman, man van de taal, schatbewaarder van de taal, ed. by Johan De Caluwe, Georges De Schutter, Magda Devos, and Jacques Van Keymeulen, 981–93. Ghent: Academic Press.). While the reach of colloquial language — including colloquial T-forms — has extended to different speaker groups (also those of higher socio-economic status such as white-collar workers — cf. Plevoets 2013Plevoets, Koen 2013 “De status van de Vlaamse tussentaal: een analyse van enkele socio-economische determinanten.” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse taal-en letterkunde 129 (3): 191–233.) and into various contexts, including professional contexts (Grondelaers and Speelman 2013Grondelaers, Stefan, and Dirk Speelman 2013 “Can Speaker Evaluation Return Private Attitudes towards Stigmatised Varieties? Evidence from Emergent Standardisation in Belgian Dutch.” In Language (De)Standardisation in Late Modern Europe: Experimental Studies, ed. by Tore Kristiansen, and Stefan Grondelaers, 171–91. Oslo: Novus Press.; Plevoets 2013Plevoets, Koen 2013 “De status van de Vlaamse tussentaal: een analyse van enkele socio-economische determinanten.” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse taal-en letterkunde 129 (3): 191–233.; Vandekerckhove 2005 2005 “Belgian Dutch Versus Netherlandic Dutch: New Patterns of Divergence? On Pronouns of Address and Diminutives.” Multilingua 24 (4): 379–97. ), the exact division of labor for both these T-forms has not been fully charted yet. Of course, from numerous studies in language attitude research, we know that non-standard language varieties, such as CBD, can be associated with dynamism; suggesting modern values like being “self-assured” and “nice” (see also Kristiansen 2009 2009 “The Macro-Level Social Meanings of Late-Modern Danish Accents.” Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 41 (1): 167–92. ). It has been shown that even within formal Flemish professional contexts (e.g. within the domain of speech therapy and educational settings), non-standard varieties increasingly find their place (Rombouts, Fieremans and Zenner 2023Rombouts, Ellen, Myrthe Fieremans, and Eline Zenner 2023 “ ‘Talking Very Properly Creates Such a Distance’: Exploring Style-Shifting in Speech-Language Therapists.” International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 58 (5): 1680–96. ). As Zenner et al. (2021)Zenner, Eline, Stefan Grondelaers, Laura Rosseel, Dirk Speelman, Marie Esselinckx, and Ellen Rombouts 2021 “The Competence of the Professional Standard Language Speaker in Flux? Support from the Speech Therapy Context.” Language & Communication 81: 1–16. assert, even in “high standard anticipation contexts” non-standard varieties can be harnessed to foster a more “engaging, accommodating style” and encourage relationship building (see Delarue 2016Delarue, Steven 2016 “Bridging the Policy-Practice Gap: How Flemish Teachers’ Standard Language Perceptions Navigate Between Monovarietal Policy and Multivarietal Practice.” PhD dissertation. Ghent University.; Lybaert, Van Hoof and Deygers 2022Lybaert, Chloé, Sarah Van Hoof, and Bart Deygers 2022 “The Influence of Ethnicity and Language Variation on Undergraduates’ Evaluations of Dutch-Speaking Instructors in Belgium: A Contextualized Speaker Evaluation Experiment.” Language & Communication 84: 1–19. ). Conversely, the position of standard T-forms is inherently complicated, as there is typically a connection between prestige and superiority values — linked to traditional values such as being “intelligent” and “conscientious” — and standard language (Grondelaers et al. 2020Grondelaers, Stefan, Dirk Speelman, Chloé Lybaert, and Paul Van Gent 2020 “Getting a (Big) Data-Based Grip on Ideological Change. Evidence from Belgian Dutch.” Journal of Linguistic Geography 8 (1): 49–65. ; Kristiansen 2001Kristiansen, Tore 2001 “Two Standards: One for the Media and One for the School.” Language Awareness 10 (1): 9–24. ). Yet as T-forms, these standard T-forms may also incline towards solidarity, egalitarianism and informality. In this way, pronominal variation within Belgian Dutch is quite complex, and thus has an especially rich indexical potential. While it is fairly clear that V-forms and colloquial T-forms are situated at the extremes of the two continua relevant for pronominal use in JI contexts — namely hierarchy versus egalitarianism and formality versus informality — it is much less straightforward to make assumptions on the position of standard T-forms. The study of the use of these various pronominal forms thus promises to offer fascinating insights, allowing us to study how not only the use of the V-form versus colloquial T-forms, but also the colloquial versus standard T-forms, vary between and within (individual) recruiters within this context and what this can reveal on the relationship between these forms and New Work Order-changes in the workplace environment. In the following section, we will describe our research aim and formulate the research questions for this study.
2.Research questions
Our first, rather general research question pertains to the broad tendencies of the pronoun usage of all participants in our dataset within this professional context:
What is the distribution of T2/V-pronouns for all participants in Flemish job interviews and how can this be related to the professional New Work Order context in which they appear?
Secondly and more importantly, we aim to shed a more detailed light on the second person pronoun usage of recruiters. In particular, we will study how this is constructed in relation to the candidates’ pronominal usage and how this potentially evolves during these JIs. As discussed by Vismans (2018) 2018 “Address Choice in Dutch 2: Pragmatic Principles of Address Choice in Dutch.” Dutch Crossing 42 (3): 279–302. , inherent to pronominal elements is their “dynamic nature” evolving in parallel with the development of interpersonal relationships, leading people to negotiate the right way to address each other when they meet and potentially re-negotiate this in the course of the interaction when they start getting to know each other better, or when they engage in small talk for example. In essence, our approach thus pivots around the exploration of patterns, which might emerge because the dynamic relationship between the conversational participants might evolve in a temporal and relational way. Temporally, we expect to see flexibility of pronoun usage within JIs, possibly revealing specific patterns, for example along with the different phases of the JI and the formality or informality of these interview segments (Komter 1990Komter, Martha L. 1990 “The Discourse Structure of Job Interviews.” In Unity in Diversity, ed. by Harm Pinkster, and Inge Genee, 165–83. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. ; Scheuer 2001Scheuer, Jann 2001 “Recontextualization and Communicative Styles in Job Interviews.” Discourse Studies 3 (2): 223–48. ). Relationally, we might see pronoun usage being linked to specific speaker-hearer constellations, showcasing diverging patterns when recruiters adapt their style and construct more personalized versus more professional identities when interacting with different candidates across various interactions (see Giles, Coupland and Coupland 1991Giles, Howard, Nikolas Coupland, and Justine Coupland 1991 “Accommodation Theory: Communication, Context, and Consequence.” In Contexts of Accommodation: Developments in Applied Sociolinguistics, ed. by Howard Giles, Justine Coupland, and Nikolas Coupland, 1–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; Swerts et al. 2021Swerts, Marc, Anouk Van Heteren, Chloë Nieuwdorp, Eline Von Oerthel, and Hanne Kloots 2021 “Asymmetric Forms of Linguistic Adaptation in Interactions Between Flemish and Dutch Speakers.” Frontiers in Communication 6: 1–12. for linguistic accommodation in general; see e.g. Kusmierczyk 2014Kusmierczyk, Eva 2014 “Building Trust Through Embodied Negotiation of Mutual Understanding in Job Interviews.” In Trust and Discourse: Organizational Perspectives, ed. by Katja Pelsmaekers, Geert Jacobs, and Craig Rollo, 11–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. for the changing relationship between recruiters and candidates in JIs). Thus, this study aims to uncover patterns within and across JIs, leading us to formulate our second research question as follows:
To what extent can we detect patterns in the dynamic use of second-person pronouns by recruiters, both in temporal progression within job interviews and across different candidate interactions, and how can these findings be related to the New Work Order context?
By addressing these questions, our study seeks to provide insights into the linguistic emergence of professional values as well as the nature of pronominal choice in current day Flemish professional contexts. In the subsequent section, we will outline the overarching analytical approach employed in this study and the subsequent data requirements and treatment.
3.Data and bird’s eye view on the analytical approach
In this section, we first introduce the JI dataset used in this study. We subsequently provide a bird eye’s view on our analytical approach for exploring the T2/V-landscape in Flemish JIs. Lastly, we detail the T/V-system in Belgian Dutch and our data coding methodology.
3.1Dataset: Twenty-one Flemish job interviews
The dataset for this study encompasses eighty-one JIs, audio- or videotaped in Belgium between 2011 and 2021, transcribed using simplified Jeffersonian conventions (Jefferson 1984Jefferson, Gail 1984 “Transcription Notation.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 191–222. New York: Cambridge University Press.). This data, being highly privacy-sensitive, was collected in strict adherence to privacy and GDPR regulations, which included an informed consent procedure.33.Procedure approved by KU Leuven SMEC ethics committee. Approval numbers: G-2015 10 371, G-2022-5332. From this larger dataset, we selected the fully Dutch-spoken JIs conducted by those recruiters who (1) were from the greater Brabantic region, East-Flanders or Flemish Limburg, and (2) featured in at least two JIs. Each recruiter in this subset of data thus engages with at least two candidates, aligning with our aim to study both intra and inter-interview patterns (see Section 2). Table 1 presents this specific subset of twenty-one JIs.
| Year of data collection | JI | Organization | Job type | Length | Recruiter | Candidate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | JI18 | Consultancy company A | white | 0:56:35 | R1 (F) | C18 (M) |
| 2014 | JI19 | Consultancy company A | white | 1:09:19 | R1 (F) | C19 (F) |
| 2015 | JI20 | IT company | white | 0:48:07 | R2 (F) | C20 (M) |
| 2015 | JI21 | IT company | white | 0:44:24 | R2 (F) | C21 (M) |
| 2015 | JI22 | IT company | white | 0:58:42 | R2 (F) | C22 (F) |
| 2015 | JI23 | IT company | white | 0:39:41 | R2 (F) | C23 (M) |
| 2016 | JI24 | Supermarket chain A | blue | 0:58:00 | R3 (F) | C24 (M) |
| 2016 | JI26 | Supermarket chain A | blue | 1:21:16 | R3 (F) | C26 (M) |
| 2019 | JI32 | Consultancy company B | white | 1:06:42 | R4 (F) | C32 (M) |
| 2019 | JI33 | Consultancy company B | white | 0:48:39 | R4 (F) | C33 (M) |
| 2019 | JI36 | Manufacturing company | white | 1:41:09 | R3 (F) | C36 (M) |
| 2019 | JI37 | Manufacturing company | white | 1:24:09 | R3 (F) | C37 (M) |
| 2019 | JI38 | Manufacturing company | white | 1:27:04 | R3 (F) | C38 (M) |
| 2020 | JI46 | Energy provider | white | 0:52:23 | R5 (F) | C46 (M) |
| 2020 | JI47 | Energy provider | white | 0:52:50 | R5 (F) | C47 (F) |
| 2020 | JI53 | Higher education institution | white | 1:06:44 | R6 (F) | C53 (M) |
| 2020 | JI54 | Higher education institution | white | 1:02:17 | R6 (F) | C54 (F) |
| 2020 | JI55 | Higher education institution | white | 1:06:00 | R6 (F) | C55 (M) |
| 2021 | JI65 | Supermarket chain A | blue | 1:05:43 | R7 (F) | C65 (M) |
| 2021 | JI67 | Supermarket chain A | blue | 0:36:13 | R7 (F) | C67 (F) |
| 2021 | JI70 | Supermarket chain A | white | 1:16:37 | R7 (F) | C70 (F) |
Table 1 shows our dataset’s diversity, including various organizations (companies, supermarket chains, institutions) and job categories (blue to white-collar). Candidates are male and female, aged twenties to fifties, from different Flanders regions. Our focus is on the recruiters, all women in their twenties to fifties from areas with T2-variation. The study includes seven recruiters, each appearing in two or more interviews.44.Most recruiters appear in multiple interviews for the same company or similar positions. R3 is in the dataset for 2016 and 2019, at two different companies. R7 appears in three interviews for different roles at various stores of the same supermarket chain. All candidates are blue-collar, except C70, who is applying for a management position.
3.2A multi-tiered investigation into recruiters’ T2/V pronouns in relation to the professional identity of recruiters
For this study, we specifically designed an exploratory statistical approach progressively going into greater detail. We commence with an overarching perspective, mapping the broader tendencies of T2/V usage by all participants. Subsequently, to answer our second research question, we study the recruiter’s T2/V-patterns and then narrow it further to a subset of three recruiters who display different pronominal patterns across their JIs. The methods involve both numerical analysis and visualization techniques55.All reported quantitative analyses are conducted in R 4.1.2 (R Core Team 2021R Core Team 2021 “R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing.” Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.). Main packages: readxl, tidyverse, skimr, mclm, ggrepel, seriation, hrbrthemes, ggplot2. which are extensively elaborated on in Section 4.2.
3.3Coding T/V-pronouns in Flemish job interviews
As explained above, we study the use of T2/V-pronouns in Belgian Dutch. Table 2 66.Table and description of the T2/V-system in Belgian Dutch based on Van De Mieroop, Zenner and Marzo (2016)Van De Mieroop, Dorien, Eline Zenner, and Stefania Marzo 2016 “Standard and Colloquial Belgian Dutch Pronouns of Address: A Variationist-Interactional Study of Child-Directed Speech in Dinner Table Interactions.” Folia Linguistica 50 (1): 31–64. . provides a summary of these three pronominal forms, i.e. V-forms, standard T-forms and colloquial T-forms, with these latter forms differentiating the T/V-system in Flanders from the Netherlandic Dutch system, which only has the two standard options (see Section 1.2).
| Type | V-forms | T-forms | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Standard | Colloquial | |
| Nominal, SV | u | je/jij | ge/gij |
| Nominal, VS | u | je/jij | ge/gij/-de/-degij |
| Oblique | uw | je/jou | u |
| Reflexive | u/zich | je/jou | u |
| Possessive | uw | je/jouw | uw/uwe |
When coding these pronominal forms, a problem arose for u or uw (oblique, reflexive or possessive type), as these can be linked to standard V-forms as well as colloquial T-forms (see Table 2 for an overview of the paradigm). We decided to code these forms as either V-forms or T-forms when they could be linked respectively to nominal V-forms (see Example 1) or nominal colloquial T-forms (see Example 2) appearing within the same turn, or an adjacent turn by that same participant.
possessive u-form in a standard V-usage (JI26, Recruiter-3)
u [nominal standard V-form] doet heel goed uw [possessive standard V-form] best
translation: ‘you are doing your best’
reflexive and possessive u/uw-forms in a colloquial T-usage (JI36, Recruiter-3)
hoe motiveert ge [nominal colloquial form] u [reflexive colloquial T-form] dan nog om uw [possessive colloquial form] werk vandaag nog goed te doen
translation: ‘how do you still motivate yourself then to do your work still well today’
However, there were 250 u/uw-forms in our dataset that could not be that easily allocated. About half of these more complex cases (n = 109; 44%) appear in a turn combining standard T-forms with these u/uw-forms which are thus anomalous, since in a T-context, they are paradigmatically associated with the colloquial T-system (see Example 3 and see Guy and Hinskens 2016Guy, Gregory R., and Frans Hinskens 2016 “Linguistic Coherence: Systems, Repertoires and Speech Communities.” Lingua 172–173: 1–9. on coherence).
ambivalent uw-form (JI18, Candidate-18)
je [nominal standard T-form] moet toch uw [ambivalent form] doelstellingen halen
translation: ‘you do still have to reach your targets’
The other 56% (n = 141) of these ambivalent u/uw-forms do not have nominal reference forms in the same/adjacent utterance but do all appear in contexts that show a predominance of T-forms in general. Hence, we have decided to group both these categories of ambivalent u/uw-forms with the category of T-forms and since u/uw-forms within a T-context paradigmatically belong to the colloquial T-system, we have incorporated them as colloquial Ts in our analyses,77.The choice to retain these forms was also made due to concerns about limited data availability. as can be seen in Table 3 below. We will, however, come back to these ambivalent T-forms in the conclusion section.
Another issue that arose, is that second-person pronouns self-evidently not only have deictic usages (i.e. referring to the other interactant), but also generic usages (i.e. referring to people in general) (de Hoop and Tarenskeen 2015De Hoop, Helen, and Sammie Tarenskeen 2015 “It’s All About You in Dutch.” Journal of Pragmatics 88: 163–75. ).88.Based on their corpus study, De Hoop and Tarenskeen (2015De Hoop, Helen, and Sammie Tarenskeen 2015 “It’s All About You in Dutch.” Journal of Pragmatics 88: 163–75. , 173) note that “generic readings will be more frequent in descriptive language and deictic readings will be more frequent in interactive contexts.” We thus expect more deictic than generic forms in our data, but a significant number of second-person pronouns may still be used generically. Often, it is hard to discern between these usages, not only because of the inherent referential vagueness of these forms (Stirling and Manderson 2011Stirling, Lesley, and Lenore Manderson 2011 “About You: Empathy, Objectivity and Authority.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (6): 1581–1602. , 1600), but also because of the specific context of our data. This is because in JIs, general perspectives are often closely intertwined with scenarios that specifically address the other participant, for example when candidates are asked to imagine how they would tackle a specific situation (see De Dijn and Van De Mieroop 2021De Dijn, Melina, and Dorien Van De Mieroop 2021 “Job Interviews as Loci for the Promotion of Corporate Identities Through Founding Stories.” I-LanD Journal. Narrating and Communicating Business Stories 1: 109–29. ). Example 3 (see above) is a case in point: in this case, the candidate is most likely using a generic you-form, referring to employees in general, who all need to reach their targets before they can be promoted, but thus, this is also applicable to the recruiter, who may understand this phrase as directly addressing her. Regarding this matter, we decided not to code these categories separately due to the challenges of coding at this scale but see De Hoop and Tarenskeen (2015)De Hoop, Helen, and Sammie Tarenskeen 2015 “It’s All About You in Dutch.” Journal of Pragmatics 88: 163–75. for an example of such codings on a smaller dataset.
4.T2/V-Pronoun usage in Flemish job interviews
4.1The distribution of T2/V-pronouns in our dataset (RQ1)
Table 3 summarizes the division of T²/V-forms for the candidates and recruiters in our dataset.
| V-forms | T-forms | Total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Colloquial | |||||
| Non-ambivalent Colloquial Ts | Ambivalent u/uw-forms | |||||
| Recruiters | Absolute | 8 | 1,965 | 1,741 | 169 | 3,883 |
| Relative | 0.21% | 50.61% | 44.84% | 4.35% | 100% | |
| Candidates | Absolute | 49 | 687 | 911 | 81 | 1,728 |
| Relative | 2.84% | 39.76% | 52.72% | 4.69% | 100% | |
| All participants | Absolute | 57 | 2,652 | 2,652 | 250 | 5,611 |
| Relative | 1.02% | 47.26% | 47.26% | 4.46% | 100% | |
A first clear finding that can be derived from Table 3 is that V-forms are nearly absent in the dataset (n = 57). Although it is alluring to consider this a clear sign of a shift away from traditional professional values and to a more egalitarian and informal approach in recruitment contexts, we cannot exclude that the standard T forms have taken on part of this indexical value (see conclusions for a more extensive discussion). Secondly, it is notable that candidates tend to employ fewer pronouns (n = 1,728) compared to recruiters (n = 3,383), a phenomenon likely attributable to the latters’ predominant role in posing questions and thereby addressing the candidates directly.99.The significance of this result is accentuated, given that candidates generally produce more words than recruiters (candidates: 146.143 vs. recruiters: 100.179). Thirdly, both candidates and recruiters use both types of T-forms in a relatively balanced way,1010.The application of the chi-squared test for independence demonstrates a significant (p < 2.2e-16) disparity in the allocation of pronoun counts between recruiters and candidates, with Cramer’s V revealing a small effect size (i.e. 0.15). which raises the question how these T-forms are used when comparing across participants and interactions.
We now specifically zoom in on the recruiters in these JIs, in alignment with the primary focus of this study which centers around professional values as indexed by recruiters.
| Recruiter | JI | V-forms | Standard T-forms | Colloquial T-forms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | JI18 | 2 | 1 | 266 |
| 0.74% | 0.37% | 98.88% | ||
| R1 | JI19 | 3 | 0 | 371 |
| 0.80% | 0.00% | 99.20% | ||
| R2 | JI20 | 0 | 9 | 105 |
| 0.00% | 7.89% | 92.11% | ||
| R2 | JI21 | 0 | 127 | 82 |
| 0.00% | 60.77% | 39.23% | ||
| R2 | JI22 | 0 | 0 | 187 |
| 0.00% | 0.00% | 100.00% | ||
| R2 | JI23 | 0 | 115 | 0 |
| 0.00% | 100.00% | 0.00% | ||
| R3 | JI24 | 0 | 176 | 3 |
| 0.00% | 98.32% | 1.68% | ||
| R3 | JI26 | 2 | 83 | 89 |
| 1.15% | 47.70% | 51.15% | ||
| R4 | JI32 | 0 | 162 | 42 |
| 0.00% | 79.41% | 20.59% | ||
| R4 | JI33 | 0 | 101 | 33 |
| 0.00% | 75.37% | 24.63% | ||
| R3 | JI36 | 0 | 1 | 110 |
| 0.00% | 0.90% | 99.10% | ||
| R3 | JI37 | 0 | 0 | 126 |
| 0.00% | 0.00% | 100.00% | ||
| R3 | JI38 | 0 | 1 | 135 |
| 0.00% | 0.74% | 99.26% | ||
| R5 | JI46 | 1 | 124 | 62 |
| 0.53% | 66.31% | 33.16% | ||
| R5 | JI47 | 0 | 61 | 57 |
| 0.00% | 51.69% | 48.31% | ||
| R6 | JI53 | 0 | 262 | 2 |
| 0.00% | 99.24% | 0.76% | ||
| R6 | JI54 | 0 | 199 | 0 |
| 0.00% | 100.00% | 0.00% | ||
| R6 | JI55 | 0 | 253 | 0 |
| 0.00% | 100.00% | 0.00% | ||
| R7 | JI65 | 0 | 63 | 145 |
| 0.00% | 30.29% | 69.71% | ||
| R7 | JI67 | 0 | 88 | 20 |
| 0.00% | 81.48% | 18.52% | ||
| R7 | JI70 | 0 | 139 | 75 |
| 0.00% | 64.95% | 35.05% |
As becomes clear from Table 4 most recruiters do not show homogenous linguistic behavior at all. Furthermore, their pronominal usage can also not be related to the type of job they are hiring for (i.e. blue or white collar), nor the gender of the candidates. In a mixed-effect logistic regression modeling pronoun category in function of the predictor variables collar and gender, neither collar (p = 0.093) nor gender (p = 0.390) turned out to have a significant effect on the choice of pronoun category.1111.For this analysis, we applied the R-function lme4::glmer to a dataset (n = 3,876) containing, as its cases, the 1,965 instances of pronoun category ST as well as the 1,911 instances of pronoun category CT. The eight instances of V pronouns were left out of the analysis. After first having established that the interaction of collar and gender was not significant, we dropped that interaction, only keeping the main effects of collar and gender, together with random intercepts for both the recruiters and the job interviews. In the latter model, modeling the probability of a CT pronoun being chosen, the model yielded non-significant fixed effects for both the fixed-effect predictors collar (OR = 52.39, CI = [0.52, 5322.11], p = 0.093) and gender (OR = 0.19, CI = [0.00, 8.27], p = 0.390). In order to gain a better understanding of these findings, we need to look at this data in a more elaborate way, taking into account the temporal and relational aspects of these interactions by examining the way their T2-usage evolves throughout their JIs and in relation to the candidates with whom they interact (see Section 4.2). Given the scarceness of V-forms in our dataset and given our general interest in the way in which the two T-forms are used throughout the JIs, we will direct our focus solely to the T-forms from the next section onwards.
4.2Patterns of T²-pronouns within and across recruiters’ job interviews (RQ2)
4.2.1Method for tracking recruiters’ T2s
In our exploration of patterns which are central to research question RQ2, we devised a methodology allowing us to track the shifts in the pronoun usage of recruiters throughout the JIs in which they appear (for a similar approach see Sharma 2018Sharma, Devyani 2018 “Style Dominance: Attention, Audience, and the ‘Real Me.’” Language in Society 47 (1): 1–31. ). In a first step, we selected the turns containing T-forms and for each relevant turn, we calculated the proportion of colloquial pronouns. A turn with standard forms was assigned a proportion of 0, while a turn containing both standard and colloquial forms received a proportion of 0.5. In contrast, a turn exclusively featuring colloquial forms was given a proportion of 1. Next, we simplified the sequence of relevant turns in each interview into a fixed number of twenty segments.1212.This method entails that participants with fewer relevant turns than twenty are automatically excluded from the analysis, but this was not the case for any of the recruiters in the dataset. For example, JI32 consists of 162 relevant turns, which were then organized into twenty segments of about eight turns each. We calculated the local average proportion of colloquial pronouns for each of these segments, resulting in a sequence of twenty values representing the interview, as illustrated for JI32 in Table 5.
| Segment | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R4 (JI32) scores 0–1 | 0.22 | 0.18 | 0.09 | 0.13 | 0.22 | 0.41 | 0.43 | 0.33 | 0.29 | 0.42 | 0.55 | 0.48 | 0.36 | 0.24 | 0.23 | 0.25 | 0.27 | 0.19 | 0.26 | 0.46 |
Finally, to reduce the erratic nature of the patterns and make comparisons between patterns more meaningful, a mild form of smoothing was applied to the sequence of values.1313.For smoothing 20% of the segments was utilized resulting in a mild flattening of local erratic patterns in favor of global smoothness. More specifically, we used the R function stats::lowess, with a smoother span of 0.2, which means that the smooth at each segment is influenced by a local window making up 20% of the total number of segments. The actual smoothing algorithm is a type of robust locally weighted polynomial regression called “LOWESS smoother.” In a third step, these vectors of twenty values (as described above) were used as input for a multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis, where we calculate Euclidean distances to measure dissimilarity between the vectors. The MDS analysis groups items based on the similarity of pronoun usage (see Appendix 1). The output of this analysis is visualized in tailored plots (Figure 1, and see Section 4.2.2 for further details).
4.2.2Recruiters’ patterns: Overall
Below we represent the T2 patterns of the eight recruiters in our dataset in a Bertin plot, a grid with the recruiters’ pronoun usage1414.The rows are labeled as follows: “RX_JIXX.” This label indicates that the T2/V-pronoun usage of a specific recruiter (1–7) is visualized for a specific JI in the dataset. in a specific JI as rows and the twenty segments (see above) as columns. In each cell, we represent the average proportion of colloquial (versus standard) T-forms through the height of the bars: cells with entirely black bars indicate values higher than the overall table average (thus representing a higher-than-average colloquial pronoun usage), while cells with only a horizontal line have values close to zero indicating a high standard pronoun usage.
Figure 1’s Bertin plot groups similar recruiter T²-patterns within JIs. Recruiters at the top consistently favor colloquial pronouns, those at the bottom use standard pronouns, and those in the middle blend both. What is immediately clear from this figure is that the mixing of standard and colloquial pronouns lacks a fixed pattern; recruiters do not necessarily switch to colloquial forms only during relational phases at the start and end, as we might have expected from the literature (see Section 1.1).
More insights emerge when we track the behavior of individual recruiters. First, Recruiters 1 and 6 exhibit consistent patterns when comparing across their various JIs. Recruiter-6 clearly favors standard T-forms; Recruiter-1 prefers colloquial T-forms. Second, this plot also allows us to group together Recruiters 4 and 5 who both appear in the middle of visualization: they alternate between colloquial and standard pronouns within both their JIs and are thus consistent in their alternation. Third is the final group of recruiters (see Section 4.2.3) which consists of Recruiter-2 (JIs 20, 21, 22 and 23), Recruiter-3 (JIs 24, 26, 36, 37 and 38) and Recruiter-7 (JIs 65, 67 and 70). They show distinct patterns across different JIs, indicating their ability to dynamically adapt pronominal usage. Due to space limitations and the significant variation observed in the final three recruiters, we focus on this group, integrating findings for the candidates to explore potential linguistic accommodation.
4.2.3Zooming in on dynamically shifting recruiters’ patterns
In the following three sections, we will conduct a detailed examination of T2-pronoun usage by the three recruiters that display diverse pronoun usage patterns across JIs, visualized in ‘evolution plots’ (Figures 2–7).1515.This section highlights patterns for specific job interviews, with additional pronoun usage data and evolution plots for Recruiters 2, 3 and 7 in the appendix. Similar to the Bertin plot, we maintain the same twenty-segment structure, but this time we focus on the pronoun usage patterns between a single recruiter (R) and a candidate (C) throughout a specific JI and we factor back in the chronological development of these JIs by displaying the progression of pronoun choice in relation to the entire conversation (i.e. including turns without second person pronouns). These evolution plots thus serve as an indispensable component for analyzing the temporal evolution of recruiters’ pronoun usage, showing its relation to the candidates’ usage. Due to space constraints, we discuss only a few JIs, which adequately represent all JIs for these three recruiters.
4.2.3.1Recruiter-3
In three out of the five JIs by Recruiter-3, she exhibits a clear preference for colloquial pronouns. We see an example of this in the evolution plot of JI38 (Figure 2).1616.The greyscale color-coding in these plots reflects bar height on the Y-axis. Rug plots represent individual turns: lighter blue shades show more frequent standard turns, while darker shades indicate more colloquial turns. This observation is deepened by Candidate-38’s distinct pronoun use, increasing colloquial pronouns throughout his interview, possibly adapting to the recruiter. Similar patterns are seen in JIs 36 and 37.
Conversely, in JIs 24 and 26, Recruiter-3 favors standard pronouns. The evolution plot for JI26 (Figure 3) shows that Candidate-26 primarily uses standard pronouns, while Recruiter-3 starts with more colloquial pronouns but shifts to standard ones. A similar cline in the standard T-usage of the candidate starts earlier starts earlier, suggesting Recruiter-3 may be adapting to the candidate.
We now aim to explain the differences between the two interview groups using contextual factors. In the first group (36, 37, 38), Recruiter-3 consistently uses colloquial T-forms with senior male Dutch speakers applying for white-collar sales roles. In the second group (24, 26), the recruiter gradually shifts to standard pronouns while interacting with male candidates of first-generation migration backgrounds with limited Dutch proficiency applying for blue-collar positions. In JI 26, both parties start with colloquial pronouns but switch to standard ones, a change initiated by the candidate and coinciding with miscommunications (see Van De Mieroop and De Dijn 2024Van De Mieroop, Dorien, Jonathan Clifton, and Charlotte Schreurs 2019 “The Interactional Negotiation of the Rules of the Employment Interview Game: Negative Remarks About Third Parties and ‘Doing’ Trust.” International Journal of Business Communication 56 (4): 560–85. for an in-depth qualitative discussion of this JI). The evolution of Recruiter-3’s pronoun usage in JI26 possibly signals accommodation to a candidate with whom she encounters several miscommunications, supporting the hypothesis that her standard pronoun usage aims to enhance communication clarity for the candidate and/or that she is adjusting to the type of Dutch this candidate has presumably learned in his L2 Dutch classes (Lybaert, Van Cleemputte and Van Hest 2018Lybaert, Chloé, Sara Van Cleemputte, and Ella Van Hest 2018 “Willen anderstaligen in Vlaanderen Tussentaal leren? Over de kloof tussen taalbeleid en taalrealiteit.” Tijdschrift voor NT2 en taal in het onderwijs 36.).
4.2.3.2Recruiter-7
For Recruiter-7, JI67 shows a pattern similar to the previous case: interacting with a non-native speaker, Recruiter-7 uses mostly standard pronouns. In contrast, in JIs 65 and 70 with native Dutch speakers, we can observe a dipping pattern with more colloquial pronouns at the edges of the interviews (see Figure 4 for JI70).
In these JIs, the nature of the initial and final phase differs from the middle part of this interaction: Recruiter-7 starts and ends all three JIs with practical information (e.g., about the application process and commute) while the middle is a Q&A section about the candidate’s background. And so, it is not the case that these beginning and ending phases consist of discernible small talk sequences, as might be expected from our hypothesized connection of colloquial T’s and informal talk (see Section 2). However, the T-patterns in JIs 70 and 65 show that Recruiter-7 adapts her T-usage, using different patterns for the beginning and end compared to the middle. For example, compare Fragments (1) and (2) for the initial and middle phases.
JI70 initial phase (turn 7)1717.We color-coded the pronouns in these excerpts as follows: green for standard T-forms and blue for colloquial T-forms.
JI70 middle phase (turn 193)
This flexibility may align with the nature of these interview phases, which do not consist of small talk-sequences, but can rather be described as facilitative sequences and thus contrast with the more strictly evaluative nature of the middle of the interview.
4.2.3.3Recruiter-2
In this final section, we examine three JIs for Recruiter-2. First, JIs 20 and 22 exhibit similar predominantly colloquial patterns (Figures 5 and 6), but there is nevertheless a slight yet remarkable difference between these two interviews. In JI22, Recruiter-2 consistently employs colloquial pronouns, while we see a rising pattern in JI20, i.e. Recruiter-2 begins with standard pronouns and gradually shifts towards a stable colloquial pattern in the rest of the JI.
Moving on to JI23 (Figure 7), we can observe that the recruiter here displays a preference for standard pronouns. This preference does not directly align with the candidate’s usage of T-forms, as he predominantly employs colloquial T-forms.
Thus, in JIs 20 and 22, Recruiter-2 uses colloquial T-forms when interacting with senior candidates. Moreover, solidarity might influence her pronoun usage in these JIs: in JI22 she interacts with a familiar candidate (a former colleague), using colloquial T-forms right from the start. JI20 was examined in detail in a prior qualitative study (Van De Mieroop, Clifton and Schreurs 2019Van De Mieroop, Dorien, Jonathan Clifton, and Charlotte Schreurs 2019 “The Interactional Negotiation of the Rules of the Employment Interview Game: Negative Remarks About Third Parties and ‘Doing’ Trust.” International Journal of Business Communication 56 (4): 560–85. ) showing that the recruiter and candidate quickly engage in lengthy small talk, building trust and co-membership, affecting later interactions. Conversely, in JI21 with an unfamiliar junior candidate, Recruiter-2 uses standard T-forms. These findings link the use of colloquial pronouns by this recruiter to solidarity-building: colloquial forms are used throughout with a familiar candidate (JI22) and permeate the entire encounter after trust is built with Candidate-20, whereas standard forms are used with an unfamiliar candidate who is also not a candidate for co-membership age-wise (as he is much younger than the recruiter). JI23 follows a similar pattern, with standard forms used with a younger, unfamiliar candidate. These findings thus show how the relational aspect of pronominal use, with familiarity playing a role, can be intertwined with the temporal aspect, as familiarity and co-membership may grow during a single interaction. We will now discuss and conclude these findings in the final section.
5.Discussion
In exploring the macro-image of the T2/V-distribution in our dataset, as investigated through RQ1 (see Section 2) we firstly found that V-usage was extremely limited in our dataset. Although it is alluring to read this absence of V-forms — signifying a power differential and non-solidarity (Brown and Gilman 1960Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman 1960 “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.” In Styles in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–76. New York: MIT Press.) — as a shift away from traditional values and towards the New Work Order context, we argue that such a conclusion may be a bit too simplistic, as we discuss more extensively below. Secondly, we could observe an almost absolute prevalence of T-forms, thus contradicting research-based expectations (De Hoop, Levshina and Segers 2023De Hoop, Helen, Natalia Levshina, and Marianne Segers 2023 “The Effect of the Use of T or V Pronouns in Dutch HR Communication.” Journal of Pragmatics 203: 96–109. ; Van Compernolle 2013Van Compernolle, Rémi A. 2013 “From Verbal Protocols to Cooperative Dialogue in the Assessment of Second Language Pragmatic Competence.” Intercultural Pragmatics 10 (1): 71–100. ) as well as advice literature (see Section 1) that evaluate this form as largely unsuitable for the recruitment context. While this result seemingly hints at an evolution in which egalitarian values are growing in importance, the presence of two T-forms in Flanders adds a layer of complexity which does not warrant such a straightforward conclusion. This is because, as we discussed in Section 1, while prior research clearly points at a link between colloquial T-forms and egalitarianism as well as informality, the interpretation of standard T-forms in this context is not straightforward. While being T-forms aligns them with more modern values, the typical association of standard language with more traditional values in Flanders results in quite some uncertainty regarding this form’s indexical value. Standard T-forms may thus occupy an intermediary position between V-forms and colloquial T-forms or align more closely with either end of the continuum, which deserves closer scrutiny of (variation in) the distribution of the two forms in JIs.
Despite there being slight variation between candidates and recruiters, the distribution of standard T-forms and colloquial T-forms is fairly balanced in our corpus. Standard/colloquial preferences could not be related to the type of job for which candidates apply (blue or white collar), nor to the candidates’ gender. Notably, there are discernible intraparticipant variations, also within the group of recruiters with some demonstrating high consistency and others displaying inconsistency. Interestingly, this consistency is not exclusive to standard T-usage. For instance, Recruiter-1 consistently employs colloquial T-forms in both JIs and this choice clearly challenges the conventional notion that colloquial varieties are reserved for informal contexts and suggests a broader applicability in more formal settings. Given that all other recruiters, who thus did not make a consistent choice for either colloquial or standard forms, used colloquial T-forms in at least one of their JIs, further supports the thesis that colloquial T-forms are gaining ground, also in settings that were traditionally regarded as formal and asymmetrical, but which, under the influence of the New Work Order, are increasingly becoming more informal and symmetrical. So these two evolutions can be considered as going hand in hand.
The question then is of course why the recruiters switch between colloquial and standard T-forms, either within or across JIs. The exploration of recruiters’ T2-patterns, as aligned with our second research question, unveiled many diverse patterns within even this modest-sized dataset. This diversity suggests significant intrapersonal differences in T-form usage, echoing Brown and Gilman’s notion of the T/V-system’s flux and uncertainty, accentuated in Flanders with its dual T-forms. Especially the unstable patterns in the dataset illustrated this, in which we observed more colloquial T-usage at the edges of JIs and sudden peaks of colloquial talk. Zooming in on specific recruiters, some displayed fluctuating patterns, with certain recruiters consistently (i.e., across different interactions) oscillating between colloquial and standard pronominal forms. Detailed analysis of these fluctuations would be warranted, but for brevity, we focused on the most inconsistent recruiters, namely Recruiters 2, 3 and 7. They demonstrated revealing patterns which could be associated with New Work Order values, albeit in different ways. Recruiter-3 presents a stable colloquial pattern in JIs 36, 37 and 38. Even when encountering white collar candidates who use standard Ts, Recruiter-3 maintains her colloquial T-forms. This aligns with what we remarked above for Recruiter-1, that some recruiters may produce stable patterns also for colloquial usage, and in the case of Recruiter-3 we could demonstrate that this might happen unaffected by the candidates’ educational or institutional level or linguistic behavior. This does not mean that Recruiter-3 is unwilling or unable to adapt to candidates, however, which she does in JIs 24 and 26 when interacting with candidates with a migration background, which was also the case in JI67 with Recruiter-7. When this recruiter interacts with two mother-tongue speaker candidates, we observed yet another format, namely a dipping pattern with more colloquial forms at the beginning and ending of her JIs, clearly marking these phases — which we described as facilitative — as different from the more transactional middle of these interviews. Finally, a closer examination of Recruiter-2 revealed different patterns based on the level of solidarity, familiarity and potential for co-membership with candidates. Interestingly, from the case of interview 20, which was studied qualitatively in Van De Mieroop, Clifton and Schreurs (2019)Van De Mieroop, Dorien, Jonathan Clifton, and Charlotte Schreurs 2019 “The Interactional Negotiation of the Rules of the Employment Interview Game: Negative Remarks About Third Parties and ‘Doing’ Trust.” International Journal of Business Communication 56 (4): 560–85. , we know that this recruiter increasingly constructed personalized identities and, in these cases, positioned herself on an equal footing with the candidate, which aligns with the colloquial forms she consistently used after a rather standard flavored start of this JI. This shows how informality and egalitarianism indexed by colloquial T-forms can be a locally negotiated phenomenon, which may then even extend throughout the entire interaction.
On the basis of the discussion of these findings, we can now draw our final conclusions.
6.Conclusions
In this article, first of all, we set out to tease out what second pronominal usage in JIs can tell us about a potential shift from traditional values associated with hierarchy and formality in institutional contexts, to modern, New Work Order values. Secondly, we introduced the Flemish pronoun system as particularly well-suited for this aim, given its current flexible pronominal system, with a standard V-form and two T-forms.
First, in relation to the latter issue, what can these findings tell us about the indexical value of standard T-forms, which, as we explained above, is rather ambivalent from a theoretical perspective? First of all, we believe these forms are even more ambivalent in terms of social meaning given our findings, and in particular due the near absence of V-forms. This is because the formality- and hierarchy-poles of the continua are now as good as empty and thus we argue that one should indeed be careful in interpreting the social meaning of standard T-forms in a general way. Secondly, we also believe this may have implications for the indexical value of colloquial T-forms. Overall, our findings invite us to challenge rigid categorizations, such as of standard T-forms as either the new V-form in Flanders or as a clearly informal and egalitarian T-form. We argue that each specific participant assigns a specific position to these standard T-forms and that this also influences the meanings they associate with colloquial T-forms. For instance, Recruiter-3 consistently employs colloquial T-forms with mother tongue speakers. This could indicate a potential perception of standard T-forms as closer to the V, possibly deemed too formal for a JI with a native speaker and thus selecting colloquial T-forms throughout, perhaps as the ‘neutral’ form for JIs. This is quite different in the case of Recruiters 2 and 7, as they seem to assign specific meanings to colloquial and standard T-forms, with Recruiter-2 employing colloquial T’s for signaling solidarity, and Recruiter-7 using colloquial T’s in episodes at the edges of interviews. This latter recruiter seems to perform routine-like behavior (Chia and Holt 2006Chia, Robert, and Robin Holt 2006 “Strategy as Practical Coping: A Heideggerian Perspective.” Organization Studies 27 (5): 635–55. ) with these episodes at the rims coinciding with what perhaps constitutes “facilitative language” for her (including the usage of colloquial pronouns). Recruiter-2 and Recruiter-7’s T-usage points towards a continuum where these two recruiters attribute distinct meanings to colloquial and standard T-forms, shaping their use based on specific contextual nuances. So it seems that the indexical values of these various forms are fairly idiosyncratic, perhaps reflecting the state of flux in which the Belgian Dutch language situation finds itself now (Grondelaers and Speelman 2013Grondelaers, Stefan, and Dirk Speelman 2013 “Can Speaker Evaluation Return Private Attitudes towards Stigmatised Varieties? Evidence from Emergent Standardisation in Belgian Dutch.” In Language (De)Standardisation in Late Modern Europe: Experimental Studies, ed. by Tore Kristiansen, and Stefan Grondelaers, 171–91. Oslo: Novus Press.). There is thus definitely a need for more language attitude research that is grounded in such — traditionally regarded as more formal — contexts that have always been regarded as the realm of formal standard language.
Second, when focusing on the specific contributions our study makes to understanding JIs in relation to the shift to the New Work Order, we particularly highlight the evidence we have found for bidirectional accommodation between recruiters and candidates. While prior research often focused on candidates adapting to recruiters (which happens for instance in JI38), our findings also reveal instances of recruiters accommodating to candidates, which would hint at a more egalitarian approach. A clear example is JI20, where Recruiter-2 initially employs standard T-forms but adapts to Candidate-20’s use of colloquial Ts. Moreover, also Recruiter-3 and Recruiter-7 use standard forms to accommodate to candidates with a migration background. This may be related to facilitating understanding or enhancing clarity for L2 learners (Lybaert, Van Cleemputte and Van Hest 2018Lybaert, Chloé, Sara Van Cleemputte, and Ella Van Hest 2018 “Willen anderstaligen in Vlaanderen Tussentaal leren? Over de kloof tussen taalbeleid en taalrealiteit.” Tijdschrift voor NT2 en taal in het onderwijs 36.) and perhaps also from a commitment to fostering a fair interview process for candidates with diverse linguistic backgrounds (see Van De Mieroop and De Dijn 2024Van De Mieroop, Dorien, Jonathan Clifton, and Charlotte Schreurs 2019 “The Interactional Negotiation of the Rules of the Employment Interview Game: Negative Remarks About Third Parties and ‘Doing’ Trust.” International Journal of Business Communication 56 (4): 560–85. ). Regarding these accommodation reversals both towards native and non-native speaker candidates, we believe these may also be related to the shift that is taking place in the Belgian — and also greater European or even Western — labor market where there is a scarcity of candidates in many labor market sectors (Beechler and Woodward 2009Beechler, Schon, and Ian C. Woodward 2009 “The Global ‘War for Talent.’” Journal of International Management 15 (3): 273–85. ; De Dijn and Van De Mieroop 2024 2024 “Interactionally Negotiating Power in ‘War for Talent’-Job Interviews.” Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice 18 (1): 1–33. ; De Smet et al. 2022De Smet, Ruben, Ines Penders, Boie Neefs, and Sarah Vansteenkiste 2022 “Kwartaalbericht Vlaamse arbeidsmarkt. Februari 2022.” Werk.Focus 2021 Nr. 1.), resulting in a so-called War for Talent. This may prompt recruiters to make use of all potential means to reel in candidates, from a diversity of backgrounds, and the swift switch to colloquial T-forms during JI20 may perhaps be one of these techniques. In this way, with this study we want to contribute to a new outlook on the JI, removed from traditional power dynamics and suggesting a shift towards more symmetrical interactions, which may be related to a variety of contextual reasons, such as the New Work Order as well as the War for Talent.
Finally, the study’s findings are currently provisional, and further investigations with different recruiters are necessary to establish more conclusive results, especially as our study did not systematically encompass regional variations, gender, or age distinctions. For instance, as the recruiters in our dataset were all female, and women tend to be more prone to standard language usage (Coates 1986Coates, Jennifer 1986 Women, Men and Language. London: Longman.), it would be interesting to compare these findings to the second person pronominal usage of male recruiters. Another interesting path for further research is to look into the associations of colloquial versus standard second person pronouns with the deictic versus generic usages in more detail, which could not be incorporated in this study (see Section 3.3). One could hypothesize in this respect that participants would be more inclined to use standard forms in deictic (i.e., addressing their counterpart directly) versus generic usages. In a follow-up study, and in line with De Hoop and Tarenskeen (2015)De Hoop, Helen, and Sammie Tarenskeen 2015 “It’s All About You in Dutch.” Journal of Pragmatics 88: 163–75. , we could scrutinize a subset from our data to tease this out further. Additionally, a thorough exploration of the social implications of T-forms in JIs including recruiters’ intentional use of these forms and candidates’ reception and appreciation of such choices is crucial, which can be revealed by shifting to other research methods (such as experimental designs). Furthermore, the presence of ambivalent T-forms, categorized here as colloquial, raises intriguing questions about their perception and colloquial nature, prompting the need for additional research to clarify their status and gain insights into how candidates and recruiters perceive recruiters’ switches, particularly in terms of professionalism. Finally, it would be worthwhile to confront this study’s findings on recruiters’ linguistic behaviors and routines (see our discussion of Recruiter-7’s behavior above) with company-specific language policies concerning recruitment, which may of course be highly influential in this respect as well.
Despite these limitations, our attempt to unravel the intricate relationship between pronouns and professional values not only showcased a novel exploratory statistical approach, which we argue is well suited for tracking local interactional patterns of language use, but it also revealed several findings. We could demonstrate the near absence of V-forms and the considerable variation in the use of colloquial and standard T-forms, where the state of flux of the Belgian Dutch pronominal system might actually provide recruiters with an opportunity to tune in with the transition from traditional to more modern values in the workplace. Our detailed exploration at the individual recruiter level unveiled a more cohesive narrative, indicating that these participants are shaping their own rules for T2/V usage, interpretable within their professional context. We thus advocate for a perspective similar to Zenner et al. (2021)Zenner, Eline, Stefan Grondelaers, Laura Rosseel, Dirk Speelman, Marie Esselinckx, and Ellen Rombouts 2021 “The Competence of the Professional Standard Language Speaker in Flux? Support from the Speech Therapy Context.” Language & Communication 81: 1–16. who argue for incorporating discursive micro-contexts into research on the professional context. While their findings did not demonstrate a growing acceptance of colloquial Belgian Dutch in (informal parts of) professional speech, our data suggests that, in the context of JIs, this association might be plausible — but further research should uncover participants’ stances towards what we have shown with this study, namely that colloquial Belgian Dutch is part and parcel of workplace language in Flemish JIs.
Funding
Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with KU Leuven.
Notes
References
Appendix 1.MDS-plot
Vectors of twenty values formed the input. Euclidean distances used as the dissimilarity measure between the vectors.
Appendix 2.Evolution plots for Recruiter-3
Note JI24: No plot due to limited data. Recruiter-3: see Table 4. Candidate-24: two V-forms and eleven standard T-forms.
Appendix 3.Evolution plots for Recruiter-7
Appendix 4.Information on JI23
Note: No plot due to limited data. Recruiter-2: see Table 4. Candidate-23: zero V-forms, one standard T-form, seventeen colloquial T-forms.