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This article discusses a number of linguistic aspects of the internationalisation and anglicisation of higher education in Flanders. We aim to combine an overview of the applicable legal measures with the most detailed and complete information to date on the actual linguistic practices in universities and university colleges. To this end, we collected the most recent available data from a variety of official reports and databases on parameters including the number of English bachelor and master programmes currently on offer, the relative share of students involved in these international programmes, as well as the extent to which students and professors meet official language requirements. Next to these English-focused aspects, we also supply new figures on the required mother tongue proficiency to enrol in the regular Dutch-based curriculum (theory versus practice). The situation in the Dutch-speaking community of Belgium is then compared to that of the French-speaking Community, once again based on figures and data that were collated from a variety of official sources. All data indicate that the actual impact of anglicisation in Flemish universities and university colleges remains limited and unproblematic, compared to the situation in many other medium-sized language communities. The closing discussion advocates a language policy for higher education in Flanders that combines a strong focus on mother tongue proficiency with a solid training in English for academic purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the written Dutch of lower class writers in 19th century Bruges (Flanders, Belgium). None of the scribes conformed to any of the prestige norms for Dutch spelling at the time. They all used an idiosyncratic orthography instead, full of variability but not chaotic. On the level of style and syntax, these texts are characterised by ‘stylistic breakdown’. The combination of these orthographical and stylistic features was not typical for lower class writing as such. In Bruges, middle and upper class writers displayed similar writing patterns, but they abandoned this ‘style’ for the standard earlier than the lower class writers did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To translate the Sarcopenia Quality of Life (SarQoL ® ) questionnaire into Dutch and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Dutch version of this questionnaire., Methods: The translation was carried out using a 5-step process, with 2 initial translations, a merging of these 2 translations, 2 backwards translations, an expert committee review and a pretest of the questionnaire. Sarcopenia was diagnosed with the EWGSOP algorithm. The validation consisted of an examination of the discriminative power, internal consistency, construct validity, test-retest reliability and floor and ceiling effects., Results: No significant problems were encountered during the translation process. A total of 92 subjects were included in the validation part of this study, 30 of which were sarcopenic. Discriminative power between sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic subjects was found for all domains and the Overall score (median overall QoL score: 67.15 vs 79.72; p=0.003). High internal consistency was found (Cronbach's alpha=0.883), as well as good construct validity with 75% of hypotheses confirmed. Test-retest reliability was excellent (ICC=0.976; 95% CI=0.947-0.989) and no floor or ceiling effects were observed., Conclusion: The Dutch version of the SarQoL ® questionnaire is ready for use in clinical and research applications.