ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how the main characters of a Dutch TV series 'New Kids' from the peripheral village of Maaskantje in the Province of Noord-Brabant represent the margins of Dutch society. Their language behavior is perhaps the most remarkable feature that brings together the geographical and the social aspect of the culture they portray. Language then is a practice and localness is enacted and created in performances of dialect that is regarded as distinctive for a certain place. The language used in New Kids is Brabantish, a variety of the mid-south of the Netherlands that is part of a larger Brabantish dialect area, the southern border of which is in Belgium. Language is a particularly distinct feature of the characters of New Kids. The behavioral scripts with alcohol, soft drugs, hardcore music, clothing, haircuts and language use fit the social type of the lower-class adolescents from Brabant. The success of New Kids thus turned Maaskantje into a very popular tourist site.
