Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics 3:1 (2014), 82–100. doi 10.1075/dujal.3.1.05sev
issn 2211–7245 / e-issn 2211–7253 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
Linguistic and social factors
in Turkish-Dutch contact across generations
Yeşim Sevinç*
University of Oslo
Tere are certain diferences between Turkish as spoken in the Netherlands
(NL-Turkish) and Turkish as spoken in Turkey (TR-Turkish). Tese diferences
concern issues of linguistic variation and change in immigrant communities and
seem to be closely related to social, emotional and linguistic aspects of contact
situations. Considering the fact that in a contact situation the social and linguis-
tic relationships are crucial for the outcome of language change, this paper frst
examines the social values that three diferent generations give to the language
and culture of their host and home communities; then, it discusses the linguistic
consequences on the lexical and structural levels of NL-Turkish. Te principal
conclusion is that possible language shif in the third generation leads to inten-
sive contact with Dutch language and culture, provokes the linguistic factors
and, therefore, causes the lexical and structural changes in NL-Turkish.
Keywords: bilingualism, language contact and change, Turkish-Dutch, code-
switching, loan translation, language shif, (heritage) language anxiety.
1. Introduction
Te cumulative efect of long-term accommodation by a whole community which
settles in a host country can, afer one generation or more, result in variation and
change in social practices as well as in heritage language (Kerswill, 1994). Te
Turkish community in the Netherlands currently has three generations. Previous
research on Turkish-Dutch language contact has documented the linguistic rep-
ertoire of this community but, so far, none of it has addressed the linguistic and
social changes underfoot specifcally in the third generation currently growing up.
* Tis work was partly sponsored by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of
Excellence Funding scheme, project number 223265