AN ASSESSMENT OF LANGUAGE DOMINANCE AMONG TURKISH- ENGLISH BILINGUALS: THE CASE OF THE AHISKA TURKS IN THE US

Erol SAKALLI

Uşak Üniversitesi Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi Çağdaş Türk Lehçeleri ve Edebiyatları Bölümü

Keywords: Bilingualism, language dominance, bilingual language profile, Ahıska Turks, linguistic integration.

Abstract

Today living in ten different countries, the Ahıska Turks have had to leave their lands and immigrate to different places. As a consequence of these migrations they did compulsorily or sometimes voluntarily as in the case of their migration to the US, they have encountered different cultures and languages/dialects. Some of the Ahıska Turks, today, live in the US. Since they have been living in the US for more than a decade, they have adjusted to the way of life in the US culturally and linguistically alike. Thanks to their previous experiences, they have learned English and become bilingual/multilingual. The aim of this study was to measure the language dominance among the Ahıska Turks. 125 Ahıska Turks (nfemale = 42 and nmale = 83), living in the United States of America, Ohio, consisted of the sample of the survey. The Bilingual Language Profile was employed to measure the language dominance and the SPSS was used to analyze the data obtained. According to the findings, the level of education, employment, age, language use, language proficiency, and language attitude of the participants were significant for the dominant language. The results were discussed within the framework of the existing literature on language dominance and suggestions for the Ahıska Turks living in the United States of America were put forward.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares no conflicts of interest in this study.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funds granted by The Scientific and Technological Council of Turkey- TUBITAK. Therefore, the author thanks TUBITAK. The author also thanks Prof. Dr. Jaklin Kornfilt at Syracuse University for her invitation for the implementation of the project and Mr. Islom Shakhbandarov, the CEO of The Ahıska Turkish American Community Center, for his help for the implementation of the questionnaires.

Ethical Statement
The required permissions have been obtained from the participants. Ethical committee approval is not required for this research.