ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Dutch prescriptivism is approached from a historical-sociolinguistic perspective. We first situate prescriptivism in the context in which it arose and explain how metalinguistic commentary became more institutionalized over time. We furthermore illustrate how the social embedding of language change, on the one hand, and the chronology of language change, on the other, are important factors to consider when measuring the impact of prescriptive injunctions on language use.
