Late language acquisition and identity construction: variation in use of the Dutch definite determiners DE and HET

Acquisition of the grammatical gender of the Dutch definite common determiner de and neuter het is a long-lasting process since monolingual children do not acquire a target grammar with respect to the use of het until the age of six. Before that age, they overuse de. Bilingual child acquirers from ethnic minority communities show an overuse of de to a much higher extent than their monolingual controls. We will explore the relation between language acquisition and language variation. It is argued that when the acquisition process of a grammatical phenomenon takes too long, it will become vulnerable in the sense that language external and internal factors start to interfere with this process and the emerging variation will remain for some acquirers. The hypothesis is put forward that in that case a grammatical phenomenon is very eligible to be used in identity construction.