Academic & Scientific Register
Academic & Scientific Register
Dutch academic writing removes the author from the sentence. Where English increasingly says 'I argue', Dutch still prefers in dit artikel wordt betoogd dat — an impersonal passive with no one in it.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
The impersonal passive replaces the first person
In dit artikel wordt onderzocht in hoeverre ...
This article investigates the extent to which ...
Academic Dutch is markedly more impersonal than current academic English. Rather than ik onderzoek, convention prefers wordt onderzocht, er wordt betoogd, kan worden geconcludeerd. The construction combines the worden passive with an er or a fronted phrase to fill the subject slot. Using ik is increasingly tolerated but still reads as informal in many fields.
Formal connectives and reference words
ten aanzien van, met betrekking tot, dienaangaande, het onderhavige onderzoek
with regard to, in relation to, in this respect, the present study
Academic register has its own set of multi-word prepositions: ten aanzien van, met betrekking tot, op basis van, in het kader van. Reference to the current work uses onderhavig ('the present') or het voorliggende. These are fixed and heavily used; substituting a simpler equivalent like over is grammatically fine but registers as under-formal.
Hedged claims are the norm
Dit suggereert dat ... Er zijn aanwijzingen dat ... Vermoedelijk ...
This suggests that ... There are indications that ... Presumably ...
Scientific Dutch hedges with a graded set: aantonen ('demonstrate') at the strong end, suggereren and erop wijzen in the middle, niet uitgesloten dat at the weak end. Combined with the modal adverbs — vermoedelijk, wellicht, mogelijk — this lets a writer calibrate certainty precisely. Overclaiming with aantonen where the evidence supports only suggereren is treated as a substantive error, not a stylistic one.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- the research
- English
- the hypothesis
- English
- with regard to
- English
- in relation to
- English
- in the context of
- English
- present / in question
- English
- to what extent
- English
- the finding
- English
- to indicate
- English
- the sample
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