Turkish Immigrants in the Netherlands - Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Transcript of Turkish Immigrants in the Netherlands - Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
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Multilingualism and Attrition:
Turkish Immigrants in the Netherlands
First Year Report
August 2008
Gulsen Yilmaz
University of Groningen
Promoter: Prof. Dr. C. L. J. de Bot
Supervision: Prof. Dr. C. L. J. de Bot and Dr. M. S. Schmid
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Multilingualism and Attrition: Turkish Immigrants in the Netherlands
Contents Page no.
1. Introduction to the Research Project………………………………………………...4
2. Implications of the Research Project………………………………………………...6
3. Previous Research on Attrition……………………………………………………….9
3.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………….9
3.2. Definitions…………………………………………………………………..10
3.3. Linguistic aspects of attrition……………………………………………...12
3.4. Sociolinguistic Aspects……………………………………………………..13
3.5. Dynamic Systems Theory Approach (DST)……………………………...14
4. Previous Research on Immigrant Turkish…………………………………………15
5. The Current Study…………………………………………………………………...17
5.1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………….17
5.2. Research Questions…………………………………………………………….19
5.3. Informants……………………………………………………………………...19
6. The Pilot Studies……………………………………………………………………..20
6.1. An Overview………………………………………………………………..20
6.2. The Relativisation Production Task………………………………………21
6.3. Controlled Lexical Naming Task…………………………………………22
6.4. Story and Film Retelling…………………………………………………..22
6.5. Sociolinguistic Questionnaire (SQ) and Free Speech (FS)………………23
6.6. Picture Naming Task (PNT)………………………………………………23
7. Actual Testing………………………………………………………………………...24
7.1. Procedure for the SQ………………………………………………………24
7.2. Procedure for the FS……………………………………………………….26
7.3. Preliminary Observations after the SQ and FS………………………….27
7.4. Procedure for the PNT…………………………………………………...32
7.5. Analysis of the PNT…………………………………………………..……33
8. Methodological Concerns………………………………………………………...…35
9. Summary of First Year Activities………………………………………………...…36
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10. Schedule…………………………………………………………………………..…37
11. References………………………………………………………………………...…38
12. Appendices………………………………………………………………………..…48
Appendix 1: Snake Story……………………………………………………………….48
Appendix 2: Full list of questions in Free Speech…………………………………….51
Appendix 3: List of Items in the PNT………...………………………………….…....52
Appendix 4: Sociolinguistic Questionnaire……………………………………………54
Appendix 5: Interview Tips…………………………………………………………....63
Appendix 6: Participant Consent Form…………………………………………….…68
Appendix 7: Picture Naming Task Instructions……………………………………...69
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1. Introduction to the Research Project
Historically speaking, linguistic uniformity seemed to be one of the major underlying
components of a state when the modern nation states started to emerge. Linguistic and
cultural homogeneity was of central concern for the people within the borders of states
and they separated ‘we’ from ‘they’ based upon language. Later on, continuous
economic and technological developments have contributed to the reshaping of
sociopolitical and economic picture throughout the world. With the increasing
globalization, a transnational wave of movement was initiated with economical, political
or social motivations. Consequently, immigrant minority populations started to grow
within various states challenging the identity of traditional nation states. As mobility by
‘migration’ has become more widespread, cultural and linguistic diversity has become a
worldwide reality.
The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed mass migrations from Europe
towards North America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand on the one hand. On the
other hand, there was also migration mostly towards Western and Northern Europe from
non-EU and some Mediterranean countries. The primary motivation being merely
economic, the state of affairs was two fold: There was a demand for labor in the
industrializing countries and the migrants wanted to increase their standard of living by
getting the employment opportunities which were lacking in their home countries at that
time. Extra and Verhoeven (1993) distinguish four major immigrant groups in Europe:
1. people from Mediterranean EC countries
2. people from Mediterranean non-EC countries
3. people from former colonial countries
4. political refugees
Along with other industrialized countries of Europe, the Netherlands has been a popular
target for many migrant groups. It was an attractive destination for Turkish migrants, too.
They came to work for a limited period of time as contract workers. Their recruitment in
the sixties and seventies was arranged with the political and financial support of the
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national governments. They had not taken any language courses before coming or in the
Netherlands since they were mainly unskilled or semiskilled laborers and their jobs did
not require much language proficiency. The four largest cities namely, Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, the Hague and Utrecht have been their favorite destinations. Later on, as their
families joined them in the Netherlands, a social pattern of migration emerged and now
the Turkish community belongs to one of the largest ethic minorities in the Netherlands.
Besides the Turkish migrant group, The Netherlands hosts linguistically and culturally
diverse speakers from a wide range of migrant backgrounds, one of which is the
Moroccan community. In this research project, these two communities are targeted due to
their largest representation in the Netherlands among non–European immigrants. They
are also among the groups who are assumed to have a relatively low prestige L1 and have
been frequently criticized for not being able to fully blend with the host society. Quite
often, insufficiency of their L2 proficiency and their willingness to maintain their L1 is
blamed for their inability to integrate. Nevertheless, to what extent becoming competent
in L2 guarantees the embracement of the culture and the values of the host community is
rather questionable. Apparently, linguistic integration may be more difficult for some
minority groups because of various social, attitudinal and demographic reasons.
Given the complexity of the factors that underlie language development, this research
project will attempt to unravel the impact and interdependency of linguistic, social and
psychological factors that affect immigrants` language development and henceforth
integration. In order to arrive at a better understanding of these phenomena, Turks and
Moroccans will be compared with one another and also with Italians and Germans who
have different sociodemographic characteristics (i.e. higher prestige, smaller group size
in the host country) in three different settings (the Netherlands, Germany and Canada).
Another comparison with Lithuanian and Rumanian will be made in Israel (a country that
has a welcoming policy towards immigrant languages). With that framework, this
projects aims to compare and contrast the phenomenon of bilingualism and L1
maintenance/loss in diverse migrant contexts (see Projectnummer VPR-06-30, 2007 for a
detailed overview of the project).
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The study that will be introduced in the following sections will explore the language
development of L2 Dutch and language change in L1 Turkish among the first generation
Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands. The next section of this report will present some
of the implications of the research project as a whole. The third section will provide a
brief overview of previous research on language attrition and is followed by a short
summary of the research on immigrant Turkish in the fourth section. The fifth section
introduces the current study. The details of the piloting process are reported in section
six. The seventh section attempts to describe the actual data collection and point out
preliminary observations based on the data collected up to the current stage. Section eight
depicts some methodological concerns. Section nine provides a summary of first year
activities including the conferences, seminars and courses attended. Sections ten
suggests a tentative schedule and finally, the report ends with a list of references and
appendices in sections eleven and twelve, respectively.
2. Implications of the Research Project
In the literature, state ideologies are categorized into four groups ranging from pluralism
to ethnist ideologies as pluralist, civic, assimilationist and ethnist ideology, all of which
play an important role in shaping the immigrant policies in these particular states (e.g.,
Bourhis, 2001). These policies in return affect the social and cultural orientation of
immigrant communities towards the host society. In principle, the European Union is
dedicated to promote cultural, linguistic and regional diversity, individual liberty and
therefore pluralism. Nevertheless, it obviously depends on the individual state’s
willingness to make the necessary resources available for its citizens irrespective of their
origins and their relative size in the community. It may either encourage cultural and
linguistic diversity or ignore the needs of minorities by promoting assimilationist
ideologies. It is usually the case that official language policies and job and educational
requirements facilitate the use of the majority language and the motivation to use L1
decreases. That is, due to instrumental reasons, L1 gradually becomes to be used less in
the family, community, education, economic life and media. This makes the maintenance
of the mother tongue rather difficult. That is why the preservation of the minority
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languages is rather in the hands of the policy makers than the individuals themselves
(Baker, 2006).
Extra and Yagmur (2004) document the psychosocial reality of being an immigrant in
European context. They assert that immigrants do not enjoy equal rights in legal, social or
economic spheres of life and they are not welcomed by some of the members of the
mainstream society. The Netherlands, once known with its tolerant and welcoming
immigrant policies, is no exception. The change in policies towards cultural assimilation
has been explored widely by recent research (e.g., Ehrlich, 2003; Tom, 2006; Euwalls,
Dagevos, Gijsberts and Roodenburg, 2007). Netherlands used to implement more
integrative and liberal policies of integration from the 1980s onwards. For instance, when
Turkish people started to settle in the Netherlands, initially, the access to Dutch
nationality was possible after 5 years and with relatively lenient conditions which did not
impose any language requirements. In similar vein, in 1990s, the policy has focused on
educating migrants and the Dutch government offered voluntary programs of integration.
Then, when recent governments were not quite satisfied with the levels of integration
experienced by the immigrant groups, they started to develop new policies that oblige the
immigrants to learn not only the Dutch language but also assimilate into the Dutch
culture. In 1998, with the introduction of ‘inburgering’ program consisting of a Dutch
language course, an introduction to Dutch culture and institutions, it became compulsory
for the prospective immigrants to pass an exam in order to obtain permanent residency
(Tom, 2006: 461). 2006 Integration Abroad Act is worth mentioning at this point as an
obvious expression of the latest policy trends. The Netherlands became the first country
in Europe to argue that the process of integration should begin while migrants were still
in their home country. The Act requires that foreign nationals from non-western countries
that wished to migrate to the Netherlands for marriage or to join family members living
in the Netherlands must pass an integration test before entering the Netherlands. The
Dutch government explicitly stated that it meant to deter migrant applicants from
Morocco and Turkey (Policy Brief, 2007; HRW Report, 2008).
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The attempts of assimilation also became prevalent in the domain of language education
at schools. The Ministry of Education announced the abolition of OALT (Onderwijs in
Allochtone Levende Talen = education in non-indigenous living languages, which started
in primary schools in 1974) in 2004 (Extra & Yagmur, 2004). That was an obvious step
taken towards the enforced Dutch language acquisition at the cost of mother tongue.
As national educational policies and social pressures force these individuals to abandon
their first language and culture and adopt those of the majority group, the minority
language would become less important or even disappear. When they are forced to go
through a language integration process, this may not necessarily bring about cultural
integration because acceptance and appreciation of the majority culture is a complex
phenomenon by itself where language proficiency plays a limited role. On the contrary,
strict policies may tend to backfire and counter produce side effects such as the rising of
anti-Dutch sentiments and increasing tension between the communities.
Therefore, instead of linguistic assimilation with the hope of incorporating the minority
groups into the dominant society, an alternative perspective to language ‘as a personal,
community and regional resource rather than language as a problem and right’ should be
considered seriously as suggested by Baker (2006: 390). Survival of the languages are
as important as the survival of other living organisms in the ecosystem for the
maintenance of ecological diversity (see Crystal, 2000 for his other arguments about the
importance of linguistic diversity). He asserts that just as uniformity in ecosystems can
imperil a species by causing inadaptability and rigidity, language homogeneity in a
society can endanger the delicate and complex relationships between the languages
spoken in that society. That is, linguistic and cultural diversity is as important as
biological diversity and an undeniable asset for the good of the whole society and not for
the minority group alone.
In order to preserve minority languages, Williams (2005) emphasizes the role of
economy as a determining force. “The central motivating force for the production and the
reproduction of minority language groups is the relevance of the minority language for
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social mobility – language prestige. Once a language is incorporated into activities of
labor market, it becomes an object which has particular signification for the
individual…” (p. 134). That is why he calls for a restructuring of the relationship between
economy and language groups in a way that will enable the immigrant communities to
function in labor market and achieve social mobility with the state support.
Despite the fact that our project looks at the language development of only six immigrant
groups in four different countries, I think that there will still be implications for the
immigrant and language policy and planning in other countries in Europe as well as
Australia, Canada and the United States because there is ongoing cooperation between
Australian and European scholars in projects on minority language policies and
multilingualism (Pauwels, 2007).
3. Previous Research on Attrition
3.1. Introduction
Language interference as a two way process was first conceptualized by Weinreich
(1953:1) who defined it “as those instances of deviations from the norms of either
language which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of familiarity with more than
one language”. Hence, a two-way interaction between an L1 and L2 was depicted as early
as 1953. However, since then, research has focused more on the influence of second
language on the first within various frameworks such as Contrastive Analysis (e.g., Lado,
1957), cross-linguistic influence (e.g., Kellerman and Sharwood Smith, 1986), parameter
resetting (e.g., Clahsen and Muysken, 1986) and like. Consequently, the impact that
foreign languages have on the speaker’s first language and loss of first language skills
have been investigated relatively less (see Gass, 1996 for an overview). The conference
at the University of Pennsylvania in 1980 is often attributed as the turning point for
further research on language loss that happens so often among bilinguals or those who
have knowledge of more than two languages. The Pennsylvania conference indeed
inspired a series of international conferences and workshops (see Kopke and Schmid,
2004 for a historical overview of the subsequent research).
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Proliferation of studies on language attrition within various frameworks has introduced
an enormous number of definitions of the term ‘attrition’. Below is a brief section on
definitions and types of influences of L2 on L1. Then, there is a short presentation of
different explanatory frameworks on attrition which focus on linguistic and
sociolinguistic aspects, which are followed by the broadest approach, the dynamic
systems theory approach.
3.2. Definitions
Language attrition is defined by Lambert and Freed (1982) in very broad terms as the
following: “Language attrition may refer to the loss of any language or any portion of a
language by an individual or a speech community. It may refer to the declining use of
mother tongue skills by those in bilingual situations or among ethnic minorities in (some)
language contact situations where one language, for political or social reasons comes to
replace another.” (p.1)
As the research on language attrition expanded over years, more specific definitions have
been put forward depending on the researchers` approach, i.e., whether they focus on
linguistic, sociolinguistic or psycholinguistic aspects. To illustrate only a few examples,
from a linguistic point of view, attrition is identified as “ any structural deviation from the
standard (Vago, 1991:242). From a sociolinguistic point of view; it is “a form of
language change that causes potential communication problems between individuals and
the community of which they consider themselves a member (Jaspaert & Kroon,
1989:80). From a psycholinguistic point of view, it is defined as “a kind of forgetting
which can be characterized as negative change (i.e. decline, decrease) in linguistic
knowledge(competence) and/or control over that knowledge (performance)”
(Ammerlaan, 1996:1). One of the most recent definitions claims that “language attrition
can be understood on the basis of the meaning of “attrition” , as “a linguistic system in
disuse will be vying for memory space with the other linguistic system(s) occupying the
same brain, that not being kept ‘fresh’ and ‘strong’ through constant use will somehow
weaken it, and that it will therefore suffer in some way.” (Schmid, 2006:74)
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What is clear from these definitions is that language skills in the attriting language are
affected and do change. The change due to contact with another language may be
observed in areas of lexicon, phonology, morphosyntax, semantics and conceptual
representations (Thomason, 2001). Pavlenko (2000) distinguishes between five processes
in her classification of L2 influence on L1:
1. In borrowing, items from L2 lexicon are incorporated into L1. e.g., Backus (1992)
reports extensive use of Dutch words in Turkish migrants and also longer Dutch
constituents in speech of Turkish adolescents.
2. In restructuring, L2 elements are incorporated into L1 resulting in some changes,
simplifications, or substitutions. e.g., Yagmur (1997) reports semantic copying from
English L2 in Turkish immigrants in Australia.
3. In convergence, the speakers arrive at a unitary system which is neither L1 like nor L2
like. e.g., Turkish (pro-drop) and German learners of Dutch differ from the Dutch pattern
in their processing of overt subject pronouns in the Dutch discourse and both groups
display a similar pattern while they diverge from their L1 properties (Roberts, Gullberg
and Indefrey, 2008).
4. In shift, the speaker moves away from L1 structures to approximate those of L2. e.g.,
Pavlenko (2003) reports evidence of shift in linguistic framing of emotions by Russian
speakers of English.
5. In attrition, the speaker is unable to produce certain structures in L1 or is unable to
recognize some lexical items or grammar rules or accept ungrammatical sentences as
grammatical. e.g., Turkish speakers in an L2 English environment diverge from L1 norms
in some aspects of pronominal binding as documented by Gurel (2004).
Given the multiplicity of the subfields, researchers usually preferred to investigate the
patterns of language change within the ‘linguistic’ or ‘sociolinguistic’ model and only
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recently some studies focused on the dynamics of the combined factors altogether under
the name of ‘dynamic systems theory'.
3.3. Linguistic aspects of attrition
Studies on language attrition can be categorized into four linguistic models according to
Schmid (2002:11): the Regression, the Interlanguage, the Simplification and the
Parameter Hypotheses. Many of the overviews on language attrition research start with
reference to the Regression Hypothesis of Roman Jakobson which is usually simplified
and known as ‘last in first out’ (Jakobson, 1941). Jakobson suggests that late acquisition
of certain phonological features is linked to their early loss in aphasic patients. It was
later adapted to attrition in nonpathological cases by De Bot and Weltens (1991) as they
claim that language components might be lost in the reverse order in which they were
acquired. There is an important body of research conducted within Regression
Hypothesis framework (e.g., Jordens, De Bot, Van Os and Schumans, 1986; Olshtain,
1989; Schmid, 2002 among others) and it has been one of the most debated theories.
The Interlanguage Hypothesis is adapted from Sharwood Smith`s (1983) hypothesis that
emphasizes transfer as one of the crucial factors underlying attrition. In language contact
situations linguistic features of L1 are modified as a result of transfer from the second
language. (Dis)similarity between L1 and L2, frequency of use and complexity of rules in
language systems are assumed to be among the important variables in predicting the
vulnerability of the structures to attrition. (e.g., Seliger, 1991; Gurel, 2002; Pavlenko,
2004 among others)
The Simplification Hypothesis is another commonly attributed model, though it has a
limited explanatory power (Schmitt, 2004). Language attrition results in a general
simplification and reduction of a language system, especially with regard to the linguistic
features which are synthetic and acquired late as opposed to the structures which are
analytic and acquired early (e.g., Seliger, 1991; Raidt, 1997).
Fourth, the Parameter Hypothesis has been adopted from the framework of Universal
Grammar (Chomsky, 1981) to study attrition. This hypothesis is based on the idea that
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attrition is not random forgetting of language structures but is guided by principles and
parameters. More specifically, those forms that are less marked in L2 are expected to
replace more marked forms in L1, thus the less marked forms in L1 are assumed to be
more resistant to attrition (e.g., Gurel, 2002; Montrul, 2004).
It seems that all four hypotheses are able to explain L1 attrition to some extent and the
patterns of language attrition is partly determined by linguistic factors. Language attrition
is also shaped by a set of extralinguistic factors at the individual and societal level.
3.4. Sociolinguistic Aspects
As a person’s linguistic repertoire changes in language contact situations, it is not
possible to discuss the phenomenon of language development and influence between the
languages without reference to the social and psychological circumstances in which they
develop. Among the multitude of social and psychological factors, the most important
ones are as follows:
1. Level of education can be a significant factor as reported by previous studies (e.g.,
Clyne, 1973; Waas, 1996; Yagmur, 1997). Clyne (1973) reports that higher education is
correlated with L1 maintenance in German migrants in Australia. A more recent study on
German immigrants in Australia by Waas (1996) also reveals similar results. Yagmur
(1997) however, states that there is less retention of Turkish by lower educated Turkish
immigrants in Australia.
2. L1 use within the individuals of the community and length of stay in the host country
have been investigated to see if they are good predictors of maintenance. De Bot,
Gommans, and Rossing (1991) looked at loss of L1 Dutch in an L2 French environment
and how it is related to length of stay in France and amount of regular contacts with L1.
They found out that the length of time away from the Netherlands would not cause
attrition for the immigrants if they had many regular L1 contacts. That is, contact with L1
seem to be a far more influential factor than length of stay. Soesman (1997) reports very
similar results in the study about the maintenance of L1 Dutch in Israeli context.
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3. Attitudes towards both the home and the dominant culture and language play a
significant role in shaping the language development a person. Speakers use of a
language is affected by sentimental and instrumental reasons. Schmid`s (2002) study on
German Jews in Canada shows that L1 loss has been primarily motivated by the degree
of the past persecution experiences and their effects were more intense than age of
migration or L1 use. To illustrate further, Waas (1996) reports that strong ethnic
affiliations were correlated with less L1 attrition among German immigrants in
Australia. Regarding instrumental reasons, the motivation to maintain L1 seems to be
related to its relevance for upward social mobility (Williams, 2005).
4. Prestige of immigrant minority groups is also related to the likelihood of language
maintenance or attrition. A number of studies have investigated the impact of
Ethnolinguistic Vitality (Extra and Yagmur, 1994; Yagmur, 1997; Hulsen, 2000)which is
defined as ‘that which makes a group likely to behave as a distinctive and active
collective entity in inter-group situations’ (Giles, Bourhis and Taylor 1977: 308). It is
predicted that low-vitality groups are likely to go through linguistic assimilation while
high vitality groups are likely to maintain their language and distinct identity in
multilingual settings.
3.5. Dynamic Systems Theory Approach (DST)
Linguistic and extralinguistic factors that are at work in shaping language development in
contact situations interact with each other in very complex ways rather than affecting the
process of language change in a one-dimensional manner. Since previous studies have
mostly focused on either linguistic variables or sociolinguistic factors that are operative
in language development, their explanatory power is limited to account for the
interconnectedness of these factors.
Dynamic Systems Approach has been put forward in 1980s as a promising approach to
account for complex and chaotic systems and has been previously applied in other
scientific disciplines such as biology and physics. Language development in multilingual
contexts in all its complex variability, nonlinearity, and self organization easily lends
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itself to be explored within this framework (Herdina and Jessner, 2002). Language skills
of people who leave their country of origins and settle down in other countries undergo
change along with other transformations that take place in other spheres of their lives.
They start to learn the language of the host country to varying degrees depending on their
communicative needs, language use within their social networks, their motivations and
attitudes towards that language and culture. For instance, whether they want to become a
part of that culture or lead a life more confined within their own immigrant community
can be a powerful predictor of their future proficiency in that language. At the same
time, their first language skills are also under the influence of these new psychosocial and
environmental circumstances. All these parameters in the immigrants` life are
interdependent and interact with each other at unpredictable or even chaotic levels over
time, which means change in one leads to change in the rest. This is put forward by De
Bot (2007) as the following: “All language users are constantly going through phases of
growth and decline, as their first and foreign language systems are constantly changing
depending on internal reorganization and input from the environment” (p:62).
The purpose of this study is to investigate bilingual language development of immigrant
Turks in the Netherlands within a dynamic systems approach.
4. Previous Research on Immigrant Turkish
To my knowledge, the early studies on Turkish immigrant language focused on patterns
of language mixing. It is acknowledged by Backus(1992) that the interest in immigrant
Turkish language started with Tekinay (1982) who investigated the influence of German
on Turkish immigrants’ speech. She found that the speakers use single German words
(usually nouns) which were treated as Turkish words phonologically, syntactically and
morphologically. Another study that explores the basic principles of language change
among immigrant Turks in Northern and Western Europe presents a comprehensive
outline of processes and concludes that ‘code copying’ best explains the interaction
between Turkish and European languages rather than borrowing, transfer or substitution
(Johanson, 1993).
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In general, research on immigrant Turkish in the Netherlands focused mainly on isolated
aspects such as code-switching (e.g., Boeschoten and Verhoeven, 1985, 1987; Backus,
1992, 1993, 1996), sentence structure (e.g., Dogruoz and Backus, 2007) and length of
stay (Huls and Van de Mond, 1992) and there are also a number of studies that
investigated language development on children (e.g., Lalleman, 1986; Schaufeli, 1991,
1993; Boeschoten, 1992; Aarst, De Ruiter and Verhoeven, 1995; Aarssen, 1996).
Boeschoten and Verhoeven (1985, 1987) found evidence for single word code switching
in adults. However, children displayed longer segments of Dutch utterances in their
Turkish, correlating positively by increasing proficiency in Dutch compared to adults.
Their style of code switching also differed from that of adults in phonological, syntactic
and semantic ways. In general, switching pattern is restricted to single word switches in
adult first generation (Boeschoeten and Verhoeven, 1985).
Similar to adults and children, peer group bilingual adolescent speech displayed
widespread use of code switching (Backus, 1992). Not only Dutch words but also longer
Dutch constituents were incorporated into Turkish sentences, Turkish language being the
base language. They seemed to have developed their own in-group conversations
(Backus, 1993).
Huls and Van De Mond (1992) was the first study that looked at structural attrition of
Turkish in the Netherlands. They found out that longer residence correlates with more use
of Dutch in the family and there are signs of attrition in terms of construction of
grammatically less complex sentences in the family with a longer duration of stay(only
the second generation). There was no evidence for attrition in the first generation or the
children of the family with the shorter residence.
In a recent study that investigated the possible structural changes in immigrant Turkish
in the Netherlands, Dogruoz and Backus (2007) concluded that Dutch-Turkish adult
bilinguals did not display more use of Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) word order in their
Turkish speech as a result of extended exposure to Dutch. Their explanation is that
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Turkish is flexible in terms of word order and while SOV is the most frequent structure,
SVO is also used often.
Other than studies that focused on code switching, word order and bilingual child
language development, there are no studies that looked at immigrant Turkish from a
linguistic and sociolinguistic point of view. An exception may be Lalleman (1986) who
examined oral Dutch language proficiency of Turkish children born in the Netherlands in
an attempt to establish the role of social and psychological factors behind their L2
development. The attitudes of the parents towards Dutch culture were found to be only
weakly related to their children’s Dutch language proficiency.
A study which investigates language development of immigrant Turkish from both
linguistic and sociolinguistic perspective has been carried out by Yagmur (1997),
however not in the Netherlands but in Australia. He attempted to find out if there is a
relationship between ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) measures (i.e., language status,
sociohistorical variables, group norms, host community’s attitudes) and first language
attrition. He observed obvious signs of attrition in lexicon, grammar and syntax, yet how
much of the loss could be attributed to the EV measures was not very clear.
5. The Current Study
5.1. Introduction
This study focuses on the complex interaction of various linguistic and sociolinguistic
factors with an aim to predict the extent of maintenance/loss of L1 Turkish and
development of L2 Dutch among Turkish migrants in the Netherlands.
Turkish belongs to Turkic language group and Dutch is an Indo-European language.
The two languages differ in terms of word order, use of pronouns, complexity of syntax
and so on. In such a language contact situation one might expect to see that Turkish is
structurally affected by features of Dutch grammar and lexicon and/or has undergone
some kind of attrition as a result of extended exposure to Dutch. The reality is that there
is prevalent L1 use in various domains of Turkish people’s daily life even if they use
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Dutch very frequently for professional purposes and speak good Dutch. Boeschoeten,
Dorleijn and Leezenberg (1993) assert that “…Turks have most clearly established
themselves as a recognizable cultural and linguistic factor in the country…” (p.111).
While the extent of Dutch language competence varies among the informants, it is
generally difficult to talk about balanced bilingualism. There is a wide range of people
with varying degrees of proficiency in Dutch. At the one end of the continuum, there is a
small group who use Dutch only to fulfill their immediate needs in daily communication
and at work. At the other end, one can see some individuals with outstanding proficiency
in Dutch. In between are the people who can be regarded as intermediate speakers of
Dutch according to their self reports (Their language ability is going to be assessed
formally with an analysis of their spoken data later). It is interesting to explore the
reasons behind their limited levels of Dutch proficiency and L1 maintenance and if there
are still any possible signs of L1 attrition as a result of living in Dutch language
environment for a long time.
The research design of the study is based on the test battery developed by Schmid (2005).
It consists of:
• a sociolinguistic questionnaire including 64 items on personal and linguistic
background, L1 and L2 use, social networks, linguistic and cultural affiliation and
items about participants’ motivational attitude towards language(adapted from
Gardner 1985) in order to arrive at a better understanding of the complex
interplay between all these factors on the one hand and first language maintenance
and/or attrition and second language learning on the other.
• a picture naming task (78 pictures) in Turkish and Dutch in order to compare
participants’ reaction time in both languages and to see if there are any delays in
the lexical retrieval in their L1 compared to the control groups.
19
• a free speech part in Turkish and Dutch in order to have a measure of participants’
Dutch and Turkish language proficiency and investigate the areas that have
undergone attrition in L1.
5.2. Research Questions
The general research questions are as follows:
• Are there any relations between L1 attrition and L2 proficiency?
• To what are extent L1 attrition and L2 development influenced by personal
factors (such as level of education, motivation, attitude towards target language
and culture), linguistic factors (such as language use, length of stay) and social
factors?
• How does L1 language proficiency change over time, that is, are there any signs
of language loss in terms of fluency, lexical diversity, morphosyntactic
complexity and general level of proficiency?
5.3. Informants
Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands may speak Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic or Azeri
(Extra and Verhoeven, 1993). For the purposes of this study, only Turks who learnt
Turkish as their mother tongue were included. The participants are Turkish adults who
migrated to the Netherlands after the age of 15 and have spent at least 10 years in the
Netherlands. In setting the minimum age criteria, we wanted to make sure that the
acquisition of L1 has been completed and we thought 10 years of stay in the host country
would allow us to examine the signs of change in their Turkish as well as the
development of Dutch proficiency. At the other end, a maximum of 65 years of age is set
in order to eliminate the effects of aging on language.
The Netherlands hosts about 358.000 people of Turkish background according to the
latest census data (CBS, 2006). They have come from different parts of Turkey, mostly
rural backgrounds or small towns. Their socioeconomic and ethnic background is quite
homogeneous. There is a growing number of second and third generation groups in the
Netherlands. Unlike their parents, they seem to be bilingual to a great extent as they
20
attended the Dutch schools here. Overall, first language maintenance rate among the
Turkish community seems to be high.
The total Turkish population in Groningen is 1.227 in the total population of 181.845
according to the census of January 1, 2007 ( e-mail from Groningen Gemeente). 236 of
these people are eligible to participate in our study and 40 interviews have been
completed so far.
These migrant speakers of Turkish speak different local varieties of Turkish but the
extent of variation is fairly small at the phonological, lexical and morphosyntactic level
depending on whether they come from the South East or Central Anatolia, Aegean, or
Black Sea Region.
The language input they are exposed to in the Netherlands consists of structural variation,
too. That is, they are exposed to language from the home country (through frequent
contacts with home and exposure via media) and the immigrant community at the same
time. They communicate with different types of people such as first, second and third
generation speakers in the host country.
The target groups for this study were selected from the available Turkish speakers living
in Groningen. The method of sampling was based on snowball effect sampling;
appropriate persons known to the researcher were contacted, and these people were
encouraged to nominate further persons to participate in the study.
6. The Pilot Studies
6.1. An Overview
Research on language attrition employs a variety of data collection instruments such as
questionnaires, interviews, linguistic tests, can-do scales, self reports, language
proficiency tests, film retellings and so on. A number of these methods are usually
combined depending on which aspects of language change and development are being
investigated.
21
In the original research design, it was planned to carry out Charlie Chaplin film-retelling
task in order to elicit spoken data. The sociolinguistic questionnaire was going to be used
to learn about personal characteristics, attitudes and language contact and use. It was also
proposed that the Attitude and Motivational Test Battery (Gardner 1985) was going to be
administered in order to see to what extent individual and societal attitudes play a role on
the individual’s language learning success.
During the piloting period, I carried out trial sessions with 12 people including some tests
which were not in the original plan (i.e., relativization, controlled lexical naming and
story telling), in order to see if these techniques might work better in my context. Below
is a brief summary of these trials and as well as the piloting of the tasks that are used for
actual data collection.
6.2. The Relativisation Production Task
Turkish relative clauses are acquired relatively late (Slobin, 1977), and in language
contact situations they are expected to be lost relatively soon. The participant
performance in relativisation task could be a good indication of decreasing language
proficiency and therefore attrition. For instance, Yagmur (1997) presented Turkish
immigrants in Australia five sentences each including a relative clause that were in
scrambled word order, and asked them to utter the sentences in the way they are normally
spoken. He was able to administer the task despite some difficulties with low educated
people and he found out a difference in performance varying with level of education.
Following Yağmur’s example, I pretested exactly the same sentences with two secondary
school and three high school graduate Turkish middle aged immigrants. It was apparently
very difficult for them and they felt intimated because of their inability to construct the
correct string of words. Therefore, I preferred not to include such a task.
22
6.3. Controlled Lexical Naming Task
This is usually known as ‘Fluency in Controlled Association’ and has been used as a sub-
test in larger test batteries for pathological language loss and asks the respondent to name
animals over a 90-second period (Goodglass & Kaplan, 1983). In various studies on
nonpathological language loss, subjects have been asked to name as many words as
possible that start with a specific letter over a 90-second period or name as many
vegetables as they can (e.g., Waas, 1996; Yagmur, 1997 among others).
In my trials with 5 people, I asked them to give as many animal, fruit and vegetable
names as possible in three sessions of 90 seconds. They seemed to be a bit surprised
even though I gave them the first item (i.e., dog, apple, tomato) at the beginning of each
session to give them an easy start. Because they were under time pressure, they felt
stressed and not very willing, they produced fewer items than they actually could. I
thought, under these circumstances including such a task would not give much idea about
their lexical knowledge and eventually, I decided to use the picture naming task with the
computer only.
6.4. Story and Film Retelling
Children’s picture book Frog Where are You? ( Mayer, 1969) and Charlie Chaplin film
series are among the frequently used techniques to elicit spoken data from the
participants in language research studies. Accordingly, I used two different 20 minute
long Mr. Bean Series with four subjects, and the length of their summaries ranged from
110 to 200 words. Looking at the amount of speech production, and also the critical
attitude of the participants towards the credibility of the research, I had to consider using
a picture story which was more suitable for adults (see appendix no.1 for the Snake Story.
In six trial sessions with various subjects, the amount of spoken data elicited by the
pictures turned out to be rather limited and it was difficult to encourage the subject to
talk more because they didn’t see a meaningful purpose and some even found this activity
a bit childish. Eventually, I had to decide not to include these tasks as proposed in the
original research design. During these encounters with the participants, I had the
impression that they liked to talk about their life in the Netherlands and their experiences
23
as migrants in a European culture and therefore, a short conversation with the participant
about life in the Netherlands seemed a better alternative in order to elicit spoken data.
6.5. Sociolinguistic Questionnaire (SQ) and Free Speech (FS)
This part was piloted with five participants and some minor changes were done in the
phrasing of some questions in order to clarify meaning and sometimes to respect the
participants’ personal lives. Following the questionnaire, I had an informal chat about
their life in the Netherlands, interests and past experiences. I took this opportunity to
formulate a set of questions that were within their areas of interest in order to ask the
participants during the free speech part of the actual testing (see appendix no. 2 for the
list of questions).
Due to the length of the interview and the free speech elicitation parts, only five most
relevant questions from the Attitude and Motivational Test Battery were included to
assess their attitudes towards learning languages.
6.6. Picture Naming Task (PNT)
PNTs have been proven to be good measures of lexical skills of attriting people (e.g.,
Ammerlaan, 1996; Soesman, 1997; Hulsen, 2000) and we decided on a PNT because we
wanted to see to what extent the participants have difficulties in retrieving words in their
L1.
The experimental stimuli were derived from the standardized picture set in Snodgrass and
Vanderwart (1980) (see appendix no.3 for a full list of items). I constructed my set of
pictures according to the familiarity index in Snodgrass and Vanderwart but also checked
every item to evaluate how familiar or unfamiliar they are in our contexts and tried to be
as objective as possible. The pictures are black line drawings on a white background and
they belong to various categories such as four-footed animals, furniture, kitchen utensils,
articles of clothing, weapons, parts of human body, vehicles, toys, musical instruments,
vegetables, insects, birds and parts of a building.
24
Ideally, these sessions should be carried out in a laboratory setting where the subject can
fully concentrate on the task and is not disturbed by outside noise like the ringing phones,
door bells or a child crying. However, the subjects were rather unwilling to come to the
university and I had to go to their places with all the equipment. I managed to find a
silent corner at their homes which was in no way an equivalent to a lab setting but
nevertheless a place where we could not be disturbed during the session. During ten trial
sessions, ambiguous items due to poor image features were excluded, suitability of the
selected items for Turkish people in the Dutch context was checked and cognates were
eliminated. We had 156 items to test in Turkish and Dutch. Equal number of low, middle
and high frequency items have been allocated to 4 different lists randomly in order to
eliminate the primacy and tiredness effects. The Dutch part of the task has not been
piloted yet.
7. Actual Testing
After the trials, it was decided that the sociolinguistic questionnaire (SQ) about personal
and linguistic background, L1 and L2 use, social networks, and linguistic and cultural
affiliation and motivational attitude and the free speech (FS) and the picture naming
tasks (PNT) were going to form the core of the study.
I carried out SQ and FS in Turkish and they were followed by the PNT in Turkish. FS
and PNT in Dutch will be performed out later by a Dutch speaking assistant.
7.1. Procedure for the SQ
SQ was adopted from the questionnaire in the test battery developed by Schmid (2005).
Here is a detailed classification of items per each category (see appendix no. 4 for the full
questionnaire):
1. Personal background:
Age (question 1)
Sex (question 2)
Birthplace (question 3)
Nationality (question 4)
25
Education (question 5)
Length of and reason for emigration (questions 6,7)
Stay in other countries (question 8)
Language(s) they learnt in the family (question 9)
Other languages they learnt (questions 11,12,13)
2. Language contact:
Frequency of visits to home (question 14)
Frequency of use (question 21)
Native language of friends (questions 24, 45)
Native language of (ex-) partner (question 28)
Amount of contact with friends/family back home (question 43)
Change in use of L1 (question 52)
3. Language choice:
Use of L1 with partner (questions 30,31,32)
Use of L1 with children/grandchildren (questions 34, 35, 37, 38)
Use of L1 media (questions 48, 49, 50)
Social Network (question 46)
4. L1 proficiency self-evaluation:
Proficiency at arrival (question 19)
Present proficiency (question 20)
Change in proficiency (question 51)
Self-perception of bilingualism (question 55)
5. L2 proficiency self-evaluation:
Attendance to Dutch language courses (question 10)
Proficiency at arrival (question 17)
Present proficiency (question 18)
6. Attitudes towards L1, L2, cultures:
Importance of maintaining L1 (question 22)
Importance of children’s L1 (questions 23, 39, 40, 41,42)
Cultural preference (question 25)
Language preference (question 26)
26
Language learning (questions 60, 61, 62, 63, 64)
Homesickness (question 47)
Embarrassment (questions 53, 54)
Intention to return and regret (questions 56, 57, 58)
Each interview took between 40 minutes and 1 hour and each session was recorded with
the permission of the informant. Each informant was informed about the subject of the
study and confidentiality of the identities of the participants (see appendix no.6 for the
participant consent).
We had eliminated questions about job and income. The question about the last school
they finished gave an idea about the socioeconomic status of the participant.
Nevertheless, during the course of the interview it became apparent that they were mostly
workers with a few exceptions who owned their own businesses and few others who held
executive or managerial positions at medium levels.
The order of the questions were never the same for the informants because the flow of the
conversation was left to the informant while I was guiding the direction towards the
answers I needed for my SQ form. Nevertheless, I made sure that all questions had been
covered eventually.
7.2. Procedure for the FS
In the FS, the participants were asked to talk about their life experiences, the status of the
Turkish community and any other subjects they wish to talk about. The SQ and FS was
carried out in the form of a semi-structured interview and I asked the questions in a
spontaneous way as the flow of conversation allowed until the required information about
the participant was completed. Therefore, it was more like an informal and friendly chat
(see appendix no.5. for interview tips adapted from News College Practical Journalism
Tips, 2008 and Free Management Library, 2008).
That part was completely integrated into the SQ and of course recorded by a tape
27
recorder. The original purpose was to ask questions at the end of the SQ in order to elicit
spoken data. However, that sometimes occurred at the very beginning or sometimes in
the middle of the interview depending on the flow of the interview. The participants were
let free to talk at whichever point they wished to or if they were very willing to explain
more than required by the question. An example question that was asked to the
informants was their opinions about life here and the status of Turkish migrants. Rather
than giving them the list of questions to choose, I preferred to ask a few questions
depending on the direction of the conversation and their interests.
7.3. Preliminary Observations after the SQ and FS
The interviews and free speech data are being transcribed according to the conventions of
CHAT ( Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts), the coding system of CHILDES
(Child Language Data Exchange System, see MacWhinney 1991). The data have not
been coded completely and analyzed statistically yet. The following are based on
preliminary impressions based on completed interviews so far.
1.Personal Background:
23 female and 17 male informants have been interviewed. They came from 13 different
cities located in Central Anatolia. Most arrivals occurred between the age of 18 and early
twenties and they mostly arrived in the Netherlands after 1980 onwards. The citizenship
currently held by them are as follows: Turkish 8, Dutch 7, 21 had taken dual citizenship
(4 participants did not want to reveal their nationality). The reasons for migration center
around mainly family reunification, marriage and work. The highest level of education
completed by 13 informants is primary school, 4 of them are graduates of secondary
school, 4 people finished apprenticeship training and 21 of them are graduates of
technical(high) school or university. Most of them did not have an opportunity to learn
other foreign languages. None of them lived in another country for longer than 6 months.
2. Language contact:
They have frequent contacts with the relatives in Turkey and pay regular visits to their
hometowns with few exceptions who have rather weak ties with home. While they
28
reported that the amount of Turkish they speak has decreased compared to their use of
Turkish when they were in Turkey, all of them still use Turkish on a daily basis with only
one exception who reported that she uses Turkish a few times a year. They are married to
Turkish spouses except three females with Dutch partners. Similarly, they have more
Turkish speaking friends in general but there are some informants who have more Dutch
speaking friends.
3. Language choice:
They speak mostly in Turkish with their spouses and that usually did not change over the
years or as they became more proficient in Dutch. Similarly, when they speak to their
children, they either speak only Turkish or mostly Turkish. In some families this pattern
has changed as the members of the family learnt more Dutch and the children started to
go to school. The preference of children is to speak mostly Turkish if they were born in
Turkey but mostly Dutch if they were born here. The use of Turkish with other relatives,
friends and in other social organizations is reported to be frequent. They mainly use
Dutch at work and sometimes with Dutch friends and neighbours.
Regarding their use of Turkish media, almost all of them receive satellite television and
broadcasting through various Turkish TV channels and they also receive a lot of updated
language from the internet. Turkish newspapers are also available but readership is rather
little.
4. L1 proficiency self-evaluation:
Most informants reported that their perceived proficiency has not changed at all since
they migrated to the Netherlands but they realize that they have difficulties while coping
with the updated version of Turkish. They are aware that their language skills in Turkish
have not caught up with the contemporary Turkish spoken in Turkey. That seems like a
‘stagnation’ rather than attrition at the first sight. They have mostly kept their dialectal
features of the town of their origin in Turkey. They admit that they cannot help using
Dutch words in their Turkish speech. This is not mainly because they had difficulty
remembering some Turkish lexical items but rather they are used to speaking in that way.
29
Interestingly, few informants reported an improvement in their L1 skills over the years.
They have also reported that they feel more comfortable when they speak Turkish except
for 2 informants who reported that they felt their Dutch proficiency was better and 7
other informants who perceived themselves as bilinguals.
5. L2 proficiency self-evaluation:
None of them has had Dutch language knowledge prior to coming to the Netherlands. 30
of the informants attended Dutch language courses and some of these people are still
taking lessons. Most of them have average and above average proficiency according to
their self reports. A few elderly and retired individuals are satisfied with their Dutch
proficiency which allows them to conduct their daily lives but not to understand letters
written in formal Dutch or news in Dutch. The younger immigrants are in a struggle to
improve their Dutch in order to be good examples for their kids and to increase the
likelihood of getting a better paid job.
6. Attitudes towards L1, L2, cultures:
Concerning their attitudes towards Turkish, it seems that knowledge of Turkish is
important for acceptance in the Turkish community, i.e., to speak to Turkish friends, to
raise children and, to a certain extent, to make friends. However, their attitudes towards
Turkish are not very clear. They report that L1 maintenance is very important because
language is an indispensable part of identity and they want their children to learn and
teach it to their children. However, not all of them are in an effort to do so. Rather, they
are concerned about their children’s proficiency in Dutch since Dutch is more important
for instrumental uses such as finding a job, receiving education and living in the
Netherlands. Turkish is not considered functional, therefore a medium level of
proficiency is sufficient. There are a couple of parents who value Turkish more than
Dutch, though.
Backus (2004: 695) points out some of the reasons behind their commitment to Turkish
as the following: few exogamous marriages, possibility of returning to Turkey, frequent
summer holidays in Turkey, easy access to and much use of Turkish media, many
30
opportunities for intragroup contact through Turkish organizations and social networks,
relatively widespread exposure to standard Turkish in schools and some marginalization
and physical segregation in the urban areas where most Turks live.
With regards to their attitudes towards Dutch culture, they appreciate the legal and
political system that is fair to everyone and the systematicity in the law and order. They
do not quite prefer being very close to Dutch people and culture, mainly because of
differences in religion and family values. They usually feel more comfortable speaking
Turkish and feel closer to the Turkish culture. On the other hand, they generally exhibit
high levels of acceptance of Dutch cultural values and admit that they feel more at home
in the Netherlands. Those that have a number of Dutch friends are even more welcoming
towards Dutch culture and whenever they are approached by Dutch people and their
neighbours they are willing to establish closer relations with them. To exemplify, some
reported that they would welcome a Dutch bride or groom since their children have been
raised within that culture.
As the members of first generation, Turkish immigrants consider the Netherlands as their
residence and report no definite intentions to go back to Turkey mostly because of their
concerns about their children’s future and life standards. Most of them miss their
hometowns in Turkey and look forward to visiting home on holidays.
Finally, the informants’ self reports about their attitudes and motivations towards learning
foreign languages revealed that Turkish immigrants seem open to learning foreign
languages, and are aware of its importance and willing to improve their current
proficiency in Dutch.
7. Signs of Attrition in Turkish
Most of the subjects were showing subtle signs of deterioration in L1. During the process
of the transcription of the spoken data, it became obvious that there is a considerably high
occurrence of filled pauses, false starts and self corrections and silent pauses. This may
31
well be an indication of their insecurity while speaking Turkish or the problems they have
while trying to recall the appropriate words.
Second, code switching occasionally occurs and the words borrowed from Dutch are
surprisingly similar across participants. It seems that there is a shared repertoire of Dutch
words in their everyday communication and this set of words and expressions are
intelligible even to those with very minimum Dutch language knowledge. Most borrowed
elements are words about bureaucracy and governmental institutions, words and
expressions like ‘you know, hello, goodbye, busy, shop, appointment’ and some other
frequent words used in daily communication. Keeping in mind Pavlenko’s (2004)
distinction between L2 influence on L1 and L1 attrition, it would be a hasty decision to
take their use of Dutch words as evidence for attrition. They don’t actually seem to be
compensating for their inability to remember these words but they want to maintain
solidarity within their community with the Dutch flavor they have added to their L1.
Their incorporation of elements of L2 which is more prestigious as suggested by Myers-
Scotton (2002) as an implicit message to the listeners signaling that they know Dutch.
With regards to lexical diversity, it will be measured through type token ratio (TTR).
The number of different words is going to be compared with the number of total words.
The structural complexity of their language is also going to be measured. If they prefer
transparent, analytic structures over more complex and synthetic forms, then I can talk
about structural attrition. I should keep in mind that structural well-formedness of the
sentence is an indication of attrition but the lower socioeconomic status is usually
associated with grammatically less complex language and that may be the reason for their
less complex language rather than attrition. We can only decide after comparing this with
the control group data.
After completing the experimental and control data collection, the relevant analyses will
be done to investigate to what extent their Turkish is affected at the lexical and structural
levels.
32
Analyses of the Dutch part will provide us with information about their Dutch language
proficiency and correlations between the degree of L1 attrition and L2 acquisition will
allow us to explore the relationship between languages in this bilingual context. Besides,
the effects of sociolinguistic factors on their language development will have been
examined thoroughly.
7.4. Procedure for the PNT
The participants were tested individually. They were seated in front of a computer
monitor and a microphone connected to a serial response box. The distance
between participant and screen was approximately 60 cm and the distance between the
participant and the microphone was about 20 cm. The subjects were instructed very
clearly about how to do the task and it was emphasized that they answer as quickly and
accurately as possible using a single item and without coughs or hesitations (see appendix
no. for detailed instructions). They observed me while I did a short training session to get
them familiarized with the testing condition and they also did the training session.
Stimulus presentation was as the following: Before the presentation of every picture, the
participant saw a blank sheet that stayed between 1000 to 1500 ms randomly and next
there was a fixation mark (+) for 1000 ms. Then, the picture target was on the screen
which has been set to disappear from the screen as soon as there was response from the
informant or in case of no answer the picture disappeared from the screen 3000 ms after
the presentation onset. An asterix sign (*) appeared on the screen for 1000ms if there was
detection of response by the microphone and these steps were repeated for every picture
target until 78 pictures in one block have been displayed. The asterix, the plus sign, the
pictures were all presented in black on a white background. The vocal responses were
recorded with a tape recorder. An HP laptop computer controlled the presentation of the
stimuli and the collection of response times. No feedback was given on the correctness of
the responses. Any difficulties and queries were discussed briefly with the participant
after the session was over.
33
7.5. Analysis of the PNT
I monitored the screen carefully to see how the e-prime program reacted to the
informant’s each answer and noted down the validity of every single picture on a
checklist. This proved to be very useful because there were times when there was no
microphone detection due to participant’s being not responding loud enough or else there
were hesitation markers from the participants which triggered the microphone. That is
why after each trial, I listened to the recording and compared the records in the datasheet
of e-prime with my notes in order to make the final coding of all the responses. Various
types of responses can be distinguished as follows:
1. The expected target word,
2. A regional variety of the word or a very close synonym or an equivalent,
3. General category instead of the specific word (e.g. fruit for cherry),
4. Parts for the whole: e.g. finger for hand, foot for leg,
5. A word within the same category: e.g. ant for spider, bear for fox (but never ant for
chicken),
6. Dutch equivalents (only few instances such as citron for lemon),
7.Completely wrong word,
8. Failure to respond within 3000 ms. (or tip of the tongue)
9. Equipment failure (valid answers not detected by the microphone because the
informant was not loud enough)
10. Microphone’s detection of nonspeech sounds such as hesitation markers or gap fillers
as well as self-corrections after uttering the first syllabus.
During each session, I marked the subjects’ responses on my checklist in a practical way
as follows:
1. Put 1 next to the item for the correct microphone detection and the expected target
word, which signaled a valid answer.
2. Wrote the word they uttered if it was different from the expected target word in order
to investigate those instances further,
34
3. Wrote 2 for microphone detection of nonspeech sound like throat clearance, hesitation
and so on, which signaled an invalid response.
4. Wrote 3 if the subject failed to answer, which signaled no response.
5. Noted as ‘an equipment failure’ when the expected target word was not detected by the
microphone.
In the PNT, for each picture a dominant name was determined as the correct name,
which was the name given by the majority of the informants but there were also few
instances where I included the regional equivalents of items as correct.
Following Bates et al.(2003), a response is coded as valid if it was audible on the
recordings and had a valid RT. Second, when the participant coughed or hesitated or not
audible, the response was coded as invalid.
During the discussions with the participants after the sessions, they raised their concern
about the time within which they had to tell the name of the pictures. They later on were
able to recall most of them except very few, i.e., anchor, watering can (these are among
the least frequent items). They were able to recognize all of the objects, but they were
just unable to activate their lexicon in order to generate a response in 3000 ms. Moreover,
uncertainty seemed to increase their reaction time when they thought there were more
than one correct names or the picture was unclear. Though I had tried to eliminate
problem items after the piloting, there were still a few troublesome items such as the
watering can (due to absence of this item in Turkish traditional culture); fox, peach,
orange, potato, doll (due to visual complexity). This was not surprising because H
statistic, an index of name agreement was relatively low for these items (see Snodgrass &
Vanderwart, 1980 for the assessment of this statistic).
Participant characteristics also may have influenced the reaction times such as level of
concentration and motivation to respond to the best of their performances or knowledge
of a third language other than age, sex, education (variables which will be matched in the
control group).
35
My preliminary impression on lexical retrieval difficulties are in line with Andersen’s
(1982) predictions that low-frequency items are vulnerable to loss. They had longer RTs
with least frequent items (e.g., pliers, anchor, well).
8. Methodological Concerns
Kopke & Schmid (2004) have recently addressed the importance of recognizing the
techniques of data elicitation and the need to be cautious when making generalizations
and arriving at conclusions in linguistic research. Similarly, Jaspaert, Kroon and van
Hout (1986) draw researchers’ attention to a number of methodological issues in
assessing the language development and interpreting the results. In this section, I would
like to put forward my concerns about the instruments used (and that are going to be
used) in data collection and the design of the study as follows:
First, to establish two equal groups which differ only in the knowledge of a second
language is rather difficult. Not only is it impossible to establish the migrants’
proficiency at the time of arrival, but also it is practically impossible to assess the
language change they have undergone during their stay. This problem may be overcome
in a longitudinal study where the migrants are assessed immediately upon their arrival in
the host country and once again after a 10 year or longer residence there. Due to
problems of practicality and finance we have to prefer a quasi experimental design, where
the immigrant speakers are compared to the control residents in their country of origin.
We have to keep in mind that the immigrant community’s L1 undergoes a constant
process of change which is quite different from the natural change of Turkish spoken in
Turkey as emphasized by Yagmur (2004). One can not equate the social factors
influencing the speech of two groups who live in dissimilar environments. For instance,
the fact that they also interact with second and third generation further complicates the
issue.
Another limitation stems from the sampling method. In order to have a truly
representative group of informants, ideally there has to be random selection. However,
because of the difficulty of finding a big number of participants who meet the criteria of
36
eligibility, I used snowball sampling rather than a random sample, which probably makes
the sample a bit less diverse and therefore less representative of the Turkish immigrant
population in the Netherlands.
Yet another restraint is related to the type of data I have. What I am going to analyze is
performance data which will show what people can do in a language and not what they
can not do (as opposed to grammaticality judgment tasks or linguistics tests) so I have to
be careful when drawing conclusions. To exemplify, they don’t produce certain structures
or words when they don’t know or aren’t sure about them but easily find ways to
circumlocate and express themselves.
The last but not the least issue is about individual variability since I am interested in
general tendency and look at the mean values. I will miss a lot of invaluable data on
individual L1 or L2 speaker who are unique in their own way of language development
according to their own experiences in the L1 and L2 environments.
9. Summary of First Year Activities
Literature reading on language attrition research
Data collection in L1
Coding and analysis of PNT
Coding of the SQ
Partial transcription of FS
Eurosla17 , September 2007, Newcastle
Second Language Development: Grammar and Processing, December 2007, Groningen
Symposium on Generative and Neurolinguistic Perspectives, February 2008, Groningen
Bosdag, Groningen, January 2008
Dutch Language Course Intensive Level 1
Research Methodology for Applied Linguistics 2007
Reference Manager Course, Groningen December 2007
37
10. Schedule
Aug 2008 AILA Presentation, Dusseldorf
Aug 2008-Dec 2009 Transcription of Turkish part
Sep 2008 Presentation in Eurosla, France
Oct 2008 Control group data collection, Turkey
Dec 2008 Article Submission to Anela/Kerkrade Conference Volume 2009
Dec 2008 Attendance to Word Inflection Workshop in Amsterdam University
Dec 2008 Piloting of the Dutch Part
Jan 2009 LOT winter school, the courses:
Grammatical disorders in aphasia
Neurolinguistics meet information structure
Statistics
Jan 2009 Attendance to Workshop organized by Dr. M.S. Schmid, Groningen
Jan 2009 Attendance to Rascal, Groningen
Jan 2009 CHILDES training and trials
Jan 2009 Attendance to Doctoral Workshop, , Groningen
Mar 2009-Dec 2009 Turkish data coding and analysis
Mar 2009 Presentation in Oxford, Exploring the Relationships Between L1 and L2
Mar-Oct 2009, Data Collection in Dutch
Mar 2009-Oct 2009 Transcription of Dutch data
Apr 2009 Advanced Statistics course with Prof. J. Nerbonne
May 2009 Anela Presentation Kerkrade, Dutch Association of Applied Linguistics
Jun 2009 LOT summer school, Leiden
Jul 2009 Utrecht ISB, submitted a paper and waiting for acceptance
Sep 2009 Eurosla Yearbook 2009 paper submission
2009 Data collection in Turkish and German in Germany
2010 Transcription and coding of Turkish, Dutch and German data
2010 LOT summer and winter school
38
2011 LOT summer and winter school
Papers to be submitted:
Sep 2009 Paper on lexical accessibility in L1 and L2
May 2010 Paper on interdependency of linguistic, social and psychological
determinants of bilingual proficiency
Dec 2010 Paper on bilingual competence and attrition
April 2011 Completion of the PhD thesis
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Appendix 2: Full list of questions in Free Speech
Life in the Netherlands:
What do you like about this country?
What do you think about the status of Turkish immigrants here and what can be done to
improve it?
What type of problems/difficulties do you have now?
What type of things were difficult when you first came?
What would you like to tell about the Dutch culture?
How are your relations with Turkish and Dutch neighbours?
What do you think about bureaucracy here?
Hobbies:
What do you do during a week? What are your hobbies?
What type of programs and films do you like to watch on TV?
What type of difficulties do you have interpreting jokes, hinted messages, understanding
arguments in debates and ironies in films and comedies?
What type of dishes do you like to cook? How do you cook dish X, for instance?
What would you like to tell about football teams in Europe and Turkey?
Life in home country:
What type of difficulties do you have when communicating with monolingual Turks?
What do you do in Turkey when you go there for vacation?
Children:
How is the education system here?
What would you like to tell about raising children here and in home country?
Politics and other
What do you think about politics and economy in the Netherlands and in Turkey?
Are there any other things you would like to say about yourself, your family, your life
here, language use and language learning etc.?
52
Appendix 3 : List of Items in the PNT
1=high frequency, 2=medium frequency, 3=low frequency
Picture no. Frequency English name Target name in L1(Turkish)
1 1 cat kedi
2 2 candle mum
3 3 well kuyu
4 1 leaf yaprak
5 2 fly (kara)sinek
6 3 crown tac
7 1 clock (duvar) saati
8 3 anchor capa
9 2 hat (fotr, fotel) sapka
10 3 snail s.bocek,salyangoz
11 1 bread ekmek
12 2 ball top
13 2 lemon limon
14 1 pencil (kursun) kalem
15 3 top topac
16 1 sweater kazak
17 2 nail civi
18 3 fox tilki
19 1 lips dudak
20 2 orange portakal
21 3 bear ayi
22 2 star yildiz
23 3 barrel fici
24 1 comb tarak
25 2 cherry kiraz
26 3 camel deve
27 1 nose burun
28 3 basket sepet
29 2 pliers pense,kerpeten
30 1 pants pantol(on)
31 3 deer geyik
32 2 broom supurge
33 1 shirt gomlek
34 3 rollingpin merdane
35 1 watch (kol) saati
36 2 potato patates
37 2 ring yuzuk
38 3 wheel teker(lek)
39 1 shoe ayakkabi
40 3 spider orumcek
53
41 2 corn misir
42 1 leg bacak
43 1 house ev
44 2 carrot havuc
45 1 refrigerator (buz)dolabi
46 3 chicken tavuk
47 2 pear armut
48 1 bed yatak
49 3 eagle kartal
50 2 ruler cetvel
51 3 whistle duduk
52 1 book kitap
53 2 dress elbise
54 1 foot ayak
55 3 kite ucurtma
56 2 grapes uzum
57 1 hand el
58 3 wagon araba
59 2 suitcase valiz, bavul
60 1 eye goz
61 3 peach seftali
62 1 flower cicek
63 1 rabbit tavsan
64 3 chain zincir
65 2 button dugme
66 1 apple elma
67 3 clothespin mandal
68 2 kettle caydanlik
69 2 scissors makas
70 2 airplane ucak
71 3 wateringcan c.sulama kabi
72 1 truck kamyon
73 3 necklace gerdanlik, kolye
74 3 peanut fistik
75 1 belt kemer
76 3 bee ari
77 3 doll o.bebek, k.cocuk
78 1 bowl tas, kase, canak
54
Appendix 4: Sociolinguistic Questionnaire
1) When were you born? 19………………………..
2) Gender � male � female
3) Where were you born? Place………………………… Region…………………
Country:………………………………………………………………
4) What is your nationality? � TR, � TR & NL, � NL
5) What is the highest level of education you have completed?
� primary school � secondary school level � higher education, namely:
� no vocational training � apprenticeship �university
6) When did you come to the Netherlands (year)? 19……………………………………
7) Why did you emigrate and why to the Netherlands in particular?
� job � job of partner � partner � other,:.......................................................................
8) Apart from the Netherlands, have you ever lived in a country other than Turkey for a
longer period of time (that is, more than 6 months)? or more,
(Place)......................................................................in (Country) ..........................
� none, � less than 1 year �1 year
9) What language(s) did you acquire before starting school?
�Turkish �Turkish and other…………… �other:……….,
10) Did you attend Dutch language courses before coming to the Netherlands? Did you
attend language courses in the Netherlands?
55
� less than a month, � less than 3 months, � less than 6 months,� less than 1 year, �
more than 1 year
11) What languages did you learn professionally or at school? …………………………..
12) What languages did you learn outside of an educational environment (so outside of
school or work)?................................................................................................................
13) Which other languages do you speak and at what level? How and where did you learn
them? Please rate your proficiency across four skills (Reading-R, Writing-W, Speaking-
S, Listening-L)
Language A,……………. 1 = very bad, 2 = bad, 3 = average, 4 = good, 5 = very good
R: W: S: L: How, Where……………………………………………
Language B,……………. 1 = very bad, 2 = bad, 3 = average, 4 = good, 5 = very good
R: W: S: L: How, Where……………………………………………
Language C,……………. 1 = very bad, 2 = bad, 3 = average, 4 = good, 5 = very good
R: W: S: L: How, Where……………………………………………
14) Have you ever been back to Turkey since leaving for the Netherlands and how long
did you stay each time you went there?
� never, � seldom……....., � regularly, 1-2 times…………………., � regularly 3-5
times…………, � regularly, > 5 times ……………………
15) Do you ever go to mosque in the Netherlands? � never, � sometimes, � regularly
16) If you have indicated you go to mosque, could you please indicate in which language
the services are held? � TR, � NL, � TR & NL, � other
56
17) In general, how would you rate your Dutch language proficiency before you moved
to the Netherlands? � very bad, � bad, � sufficient, � good, � very good
18) In general, how would you rate your Dutch language proficiency at present?
� very bad, � bad, � sufficient, � good, � very good
19) In general, how would you rate your Turkish language proficiency before you moved
to the Netherlands? � very bad, � bad, � sufficient, � good, � very good
20) In general, how would you rate your Turkish language proficiency at present?
� very bad, � bad, � sufficient, � good, � very good
21) How often do you speak Turkish?
� rarely, � few times a year, � monthly, � weekly, � daily
22) Do you consider it important to maintain your Turkish?
� unimportant, � relatively unimportant, � not very important, � important, � very
important
23) Do you consider it important that your children can speak and understand Turkish?
� unimportant, � relatively unimportant, � not very important, � important, � very
important
24) In general, do you have more Turkish - or Dutch-speaking friends in the Netherlands?
� only Dutch, � more Dutch, � equal, � more Turkish, � only Turkish
25) Do you feel more at home with Turkish or with Dutch culture?
� only Dutch, � more Dutch, � equal, � more Turkish, � only Turkish
57
26) Do you feel more comfortable speaking Turkish or Dutch?
� Dutch, � Turkish, � no difference
27) What is your current marital status?
� married, � divorced, � widowed, � with partner, � single
28) With what language(s) was your (ex)partner brought up? � TR, � NL, � other
29) If your (ex)partner was not born in the Netherlands, what were the reasons that he or
she came to the Netherlands? � job � job of partner � partner � other,:
...........................................................................................................................................
30) When you first came to the Netherlands what was the language you mostly used
when talking to your (ex)partner?
� only Dutch, � more Dutch, � equal, � more Turkish, � only Turkish, � other or n.a.
31) What language(s) do you mostly use with your (ex)partner now?
32) If the language(s) differ in item 30 and 31, when did this change?
33) Do you have children? � no, � yes, number: ………………………………
their names are ......................................................................................................................
................................. and they are……………………………………..………..years old
and they were raised in ………………………………………………….…(country, city)
34) What language or languages do you mostly use when talking to your children?
� only Dutch, � more Dutch, � equal, � more Turkish, � only Turkish, � other or n.a.
35) What language or languages do your children mostly use when talking to you?
58
� only Dutch, � more Dutch, � equal, � more Turkish, � only Turkish, � other or n.a.
36) Do you have grandchildren? �no, � yes, number: ………………………………
their names are ......................................................................................................................
................................. and they are……………………………………..………..years old.
37) What language or languages do you mostly use when talking to your grandchildren?
� only Dutch, � more Dutch, � equal, � more Turkish, � only Turkish, � other or n.a.
38) What language or languages do your grandchildren mostly use when talking to you?
� only Dutch, � more Dutch, � equal, � more Turkish, � only Turkish, � other or n.a.
39) Do you encourage your children to speak Turkish? � never, � sometimes, � often
40) Did your children ever follow Turkish heritage classes (Saturday classes for
example)? � yes, � no
41) Did /do you ever correct your children’s Turkish?
� never, � seldom, � sometimes, � often, � very often
42) If your children do not speak or understand Turkish, do you regret that?
� not at all, � no, � don't care, � a bit, � very, � n.a.
43) Are you in frequent contact with relatives and friends in Turkey?
� never, � seldom, � sometimes, � often, � very often
44) Have you made many new friends in the Netherlands?
1 = none, 2 = few, 3 = some, 4 =many, 5 = very many
59
45) What is the mother tongue of the majority of these people? � NL, � TR, � equal, �
other
46) Could you, in the following tables, please indicate to what extent you use Turkish
(table 1) and Dutch (table 2) in the domains provided? You may simply tick the box.
Table 1
I speak Turkish
all the
time
frequently sometimes rarely
very
rarely
With
relatives
a)father,
b)mother,
c)elder
siblings
d)younger
siblings
e)other
relatives
With friends
At work
In mosque
In shops
At clubs or
organisations
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Table 2
I speak Dutch
all the
time
frequently sometimes rarely
very
rarely
With
relatives
a)father,
b)mother,
c)elder
siblings
d)younger
siblings
e)other
relatives
With friends
At work
In mosque
In shops
At clubs or
organisations
47) Do you ever get homesick in the sense of missing Turkey? � yes, what I
miss most is/are ………………………………………………………………….� no
48) Do you ever listen to Turkish songs?
1 =never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, 5 = always
49) Do you ever listen to Turkish radio programmes?
1 =never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, 5 = always
50) Do you ever watch Turkish television programmes?
1 =never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, 5 = always
51) Do you think your Turkish language proficiency has changed since you moved to the
Netherlands? Why?...........................................
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1= it became a lot worse, 2 = it became worse, 3 = it did not change, 4 = it became
better, 5 = it became a lot better
52) Do you think you use more or less Turkish since you moved to the Netherlands?
Why?...........................
� yes, less, � no, � yes, more
53) To what extent do you feel uncomfortable when speaking Turkish with a Turkish
person who has never spent a considerable amount of time in a Dutch-speaking country?
Why?..............................
1 = very uncomfortable, 2 = uncomfortable, 3 = neutral, 4 = comfortable, 5 = very
uncomfortable
54) If you ever do feel uncomfortable in such a situation, could you indicate whether this
is also the case when you speak Turkish with someone who, like you, has lived in the
Netherlands for a long time? � yes, � no
55) Do you see yourself as bilingual? How proficient are you at both languages?
Dutch 1 = very bad, 2 = bad, 3 = average, 4 = good, 5 = very good
Turkish 1 = very bad, 2 = bad, 3 = average, 4 = good, 5 = very good
56) Do you ever intend to move back to Turkey?
1= definitely not, 2 = no, 3 = not sure, 4 = yes, 5 = definitely yes
57) Reason…………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
58) Looking back, do you think you have made the right decision in moving to the
Netherlands? Why?.......................
1 = definitely yes, 2 = yes, 3 = not sure, 4 = no, 5 = definitely no
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59) What is/are language(s)you used in the last couple of hours before this interview and
with whom?......................................................................................................
60) If you happen to visit a new country would you like to speak its language?
� surely no � no � I don’t care � yes � surely yes
61) Do you in general find learning foreign languages important?
� surely no � no � I don’t care � yes � surely yes
62) Do you in general like to learn new languages?
� surely no � no � I don’t care � yes � surely yes
63) Do you like to hear others when speaking foreign languages?
� surely no � no � I don’t care � yes � surely yes
64) Do you find learning foreign languages an enjoyable experience?
� surely no � no � I don’t care � yes � surely yes
65) You have come to the end of this questionnaire. Is there anything you would like to
add? This can be anything from language-related comments to remarks about the
questionnaire or research itself
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Thank you very much for your time and cooperation!
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Appendix 5: Interview Tips (adapted from online resources, News College Practical
Journalism Tips and Free Management Library, 2008)
Before the Interview:
Contact the person you wish to talk with far enough in advance that he or she has time to
get ready, but not so far in advance that their schedules are not yet developed. When you
make an appointment, you need to introduce yourself and tell what capacity you are
calling in, explain the purpose of your call, explain why you would like to talk with
the person, and request permission to set a time and place. Ask permission to tape-
record ahead of time.
1. Confirm the date and the time of the interview one day before.
2. Dress appropriately, be confident and kind.
3. Check if you have the equipment with you, if all are working properly and bus
schedule/city map
4. When it is time for the interview, be punctual--not early, and certainly not late.
5. Choose a setting with little distraction. Avoid loud lights or noises, ensure the
interviewee is comfortable. Often, they may feel more comfortable at their own
places of work or homes.
6. Explain the purpose of the interview.
7. Address terms of confidentiality. Explain who will get access to their answers
and how their answers will be analyzed( take the opportunity to submit the
participant consent form)
8. Explain the format and the nature of the interview. Very briefly, explain what
sort of information you'd like your participant to share.
9. Indicate how long the interview usually takes.
10. Tell them how to get in touch with you later if they want to.
11. Ask them if they have any questions before you both get started with the
interview. e.g., “ Are there any questions you have about the process before we
begin the interview? Or Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable
before we begin? Okay if we start with question one?”
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During the Interview:
1. Turn off your phone or ask not to be interrupted for the duration of the interview.
2. Remind them that the interview is being recorded(they might have forgotten).
3. Occasionally verify the tape recorder (if used) is working.
4. Start off with small talk to warm up. In these first few minutes you are
establishing a rapport. Only if you do this successfully will your respondent give
you spontaneous and honest answers.
5. Speak correctly and use proper grammar.
6. Ask questions which allow the candidate to do at least 70% of the talking. For the
most part, avoid questions that can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
7. Ask one question at a time.
8. Ask the easy questions first so as to make the applicant feel comfortable.
9. Listen carefully - so that you can hear what the respondent is saying and not
what you think they could or should be saying. Don’t finish their words or
sentences for them.
10. Attempt to remain as neutral as possible. That is, don't show strong emotional
reactions to their responses. It is suggested to act as if "you've heard it all before."
Do not offer opinions, judgments or advice.
11. Encourage responses with occasional nods of the head, "uh huh"s, etc.
12. Be careful about the appearance when note taking. That is, if you jump to take
a note, it may appear as if you're surprised or very pleased about an answer, which
may influence answers to future questions.
13. While you are writing, nod occasionally to let the applicant know you are
listening. As you ask the questions and listen to the responses, look at the person's
face and eyes to show that you are interested and that you value what you're
getting. From time to time make brief notes, but don't bury yourself in note
taking.
14. Provide transition between major topics, e.g., "We've been talking about (some
topic) and now I'd like to move on to (another topic)."
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15. Don't lose control of the interview. This can occur when respondents stray to
another topic, take so long to answer a question that times begins to run out, or
even begin asking questions to the interviewer.
16. Silence often makes people talk. If the person doesn't respond right away to a
question, wait. Give them time, while you add to your notes.
17. Follow up: Ask the person to tell you more, to give more details.
To end the Interview
1. At the end of the interview, establish closure. When you feel that the respondent
has answered your questions and that you have given them an adequate
opportunity to provide any additional information and comment, bring the
interview to an end.
2. Show appreciation and thank the interviewee for the time they have given you
both orally and in the form of a thank you note or letter.
3. Don't linger. If you promised to take only 60 minutes, then stick to your
schedule, but don't be rude. Say something like, "I promised to take only 60
minutes of your time, and I see I have. Is there any last thing you want to add
before I go?" You might also say something like, "This has been very
informative.”
4. Let them know that you may need to go back to them at a later date for further
clarification, and check that they are happy with that.
5. Allow a few minutes for polite conversation. Often the interviewee is interested in
the study and your work.
6. Sometimes the interviewee will disclose considerable information after the
interview is complete and as you are actually leaving. If appropriate to the study,
listen carefully at this point, and respond with objectivity but empathically; it is
often sensitive material that could not emerge during the interview. In this case,
make notes after you have left.
7. Ask the subject for other sources or contacts after the interview ends.
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Immediately After Interview
1. Verify if the tape recorder worked throughout the interview.
2. Make any notes on your written notes, e.g., Fill out any notes that don't make
senses, etc.
3. Write down any observations made during the interview. (make notes about
the surroundings and anything unusual about the subject's appearance or
behavior) For example, where did the interview occur and when, was the
respondent particularly nervous at any time? Were there any surprises during the
interview?
4. Reflection: Spend at least thirty minutes reviewing your notes after the interview
and identifying any key qualities that you feel you have not adequately
questioned. These become objectives for subsequent interviews.
5. Make sure you have the date and place of the interview.
Sequence of Questions
1. Get the respondents involved in the interview as soon as possible. (quick ice-
breaker, because you don’t have much time)
2. Before asking about controversial matters (such as feelings), first ask about
some facts. They can more easily engage in the interview before warming up to
more personal matters.
3. Spread fact-based questions throughout the interview to avoid long lists of
fact-based questions, which tends to leave respondents disengaged.
4. Ask questions about the present before questions about the past or future. It's
usually easier for them to talk about the present and then work into the past or
future.
5. The last questions might be to allow respondents to provide any other information
they prefer to add and their impressions of the interview.
Wording of Questions
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1. Wording should be open-ended. Respondents should be able to choose their
own terms when answering questions.
2. Questions should be as neutral as possible. Avoid wording that might influence
answers, or judgmental wording.
3. Questions should be worded clearly. This includes knowing terms particular to
the respondents' culture. Language should be simple and clear and correct. If a
question is not clear to the interviewee, you can offer additional clarification or
explanation, or perhaps simplify the language or concepts.
4. Be careful when asking ‘why’ questions. This type of question infers a cause-
effect relationship that may not truly exist. These questions may also cause
respondents to feel defensive, e.g., that they have to justify their response, which
may inhibit their responses to this and future questions.
Type of Questions
a)Tell Me About Questions
b)Feeling Questions are useful as follow-ups to Tell Me About or Factual Questions.
e.g., “How did you feel about that? What do you like best (least) about that?”
c)Tell Me More Questions are used as follow-up to any of the other kinds of questions.
e.g., “Can you be more specific?”
d)Checking Questions allow you to make sure you understand the other person's answer.
They are useful at any point in the interview but most useful at the end to help you check
any assumptions you have made about the applicant. e.g., “Is this what you mean? As I
understand it, your plan of action is this. Am I right? Are you saying that was a negative
experience?”
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Appendix 6: Participant Consent Form
Research Project Title: Language, Multilingualism and Integration.
Researcher: Gulsen Yilmaz, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Supervisors: Dr. Monika S. Schmid, ([email protected] , Tel. 050-3632063) and Prof.
Dr. Kees de Bot, ([email protected], Tel. 050-3637282).
Reason for the research: Turkish/Dutch Languages Development in the Netherlands.
Duration: 1 h 30 min.
Description of the Procedure: 2 recorded sessions
1- Sociolinguistic interview
2- Picture naming task.
Confidentiality: Participants identity will be held in the strictest confidentiality.
Voluntary: Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary; for which you will
receive a symbolic gift of the value of 10 euros.
Authorization: I have read and fully understand the extent of the study and I voluntarily
consent to participate in this study. All of my questions, if any, have been answered to my
satisfaction.
______________________________ ______________________
signature of participant date
______________________________ ______________________
signature of researcher date
Checking this box confirms that you would like to receive a summary of the
results by e-mail/mail.
E-mail: ______________________________
Address: ______________________________
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Appendix 7: Picture Naming Task Instructions
You will see a set of pictures in the form of black drawings on white background. You
may find this task so simple or even childish and therefore you may not like to do it, but
it is very important for me that you take it seriously and do it because this is one of the
conventional ways of collecting language data in the field and I need this to be done that
way in order to compare my results with other researchers’. Or, you may find some of the
items very difficult and may not remember their names in Turkish and later in Dutch,
please don’t worry as this is perfectly normal. Please don’t forget that this is not an exam
to test how good your language is and you are not going to be graded. I am not going to
report your name or your individual score anywhere but I will be analyzing the data I
gathered from all the participants. The reason why I have your contact details is that I
would like to send you the results of my study.
In this task, I would like you to tell me the name of the objects you see on the screen as
soon as possible. There will be a brief practice session before the actual experiment to get
familiarized with the task. During the experiment, please don’t clear your throat, don’t
make any comments about the pictures, don’t cough, don’t utter hesitation sounds, and
don’t laugh. The picture will disappear as soon as you name the object and the next
picture will pop up. If you don’t know the name of the picture, be quiet and wait for the
next picture to be displayed. You are supposed to hold the mic at about 20 cm distance
from your mouth. The session is going to be recorded. Please sit comfortably on your
chair, turn off your mobile phone/home phone. Don’t move the microphone. Make sure
you see the screen clearly, or please wear your glasses if necessary.
I can’t stop the experiment once I run it.
Please don’t talk about the pictures or the content about the task with your friends and
your partner because it may influence my results in undesirable ways.
Do you have any questions before we start?