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Multilingualism and Attrition:

Turkish Immigrants in the Netherlands

First Year Report

August 2008

Gulsen Yilmaz

University of Groningen

g.yilmaz@rug.nl

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.

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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)

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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)

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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.

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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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48

12. Appendices

Appendix 1: Snake Story

49

50

51

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

60

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?”

64

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)."

65

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

67

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, (m.schmid@rug.nl , Tel. 050-3632063) and Prof.

Dr. Kees de Bot, (c.l.j.de.bot@rug.nl, 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?