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Part of
Studies in Turkish as a Heritage Language
Edited by Fatih Bayram
[Studies in Bilingualism 60] 2020
► pp. 207–228

Chapter 9
Perceived global accent in Turkish heritage speakers in Germany

The impact of exposure and use for early bilinguals

| University of Konstanz | UiT The Arctic University of Norway
| University of Konstanz
| University of Hamburg

This chapter is concerned with Turkish heritage speakers (HSs) in Germany, here exemplified by 21 early bilinguals during adulthood who live in Hamburg, North Germany. We introduce the population, report their self-perceived proficiency and propose the Turkish Use Score (TUS) that is based on quantitative aspects of language use (e.g., the number of people Turkish is spoken with) and qualitative ones (e.g., schooling in Turkish). In the remainder of the paper, we focus on the perceived accent of these speakers in German and Turkish, discussing the role of Age of Onset (AoO) in German vs. amount of Turkish use. The results show a strong correlation between Turkish use and perceived nativeness in Turkish, while no role of AoO is evident for accent in either language. Our data further suggested a weak (but non-significant) relation between high Turkish use and sounding more foreign in German.

Keywords: Age of onset, language use, language exposure, foreign accent, simultaneous bilingual
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Foreign accent in bilinguals
  • 3.Participants and proficiency profiles
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Self-rated proficiency
    • 3.3Turkish Use Score
  • 4.Foreign accent study
    • 4.1Speakers
    • 4.2Raters
    • 4.3Preparation of material
    • 4.4Procedure
    • 4.5Results
      • 4.5.1Role of Turkish use and perceived foreign accent
      • 4.5.2Role of perceived foreign accent and age
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Age of onset and accentedness
    • 5.2Accentedness in the majority language (The “Kiezdeutsch Hypothesis”)
    • 5.3Future directions
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.60.09kup
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