Publications

Publication details [#61462]

Otcu-Grillman, Bahar. 2016. “Speak Turkish!” or not? Language choices, identities and relationship building within New York’s Turkish community. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2016 (237) : 161–182.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
De Gruyter

Annotation

This paper debates relationship building in a Turkish community-rooted school in New York, drawing on Gee’s (2005 [1999]) Discourse analysis framework. Of the four unncovered building blocks of Discourses, language choices and identities appeared crucial, and disclosed a generation gap. While first-generation adults elected Turkish and regarded the core identity of their second-generation children as Turkish, most students preferred English and exhibited unsteady and mixed identities. Yet both parties attuned to each other. Teachers translanguaged for lucidity, students talked Turkish vis-à-vis adults; parents employing Turkish language and ways of being, also invested in English.