Representations of Plurilingual Usages of Kurdish Speakers and Their Approaches Regarding Plurilingualism
From Central Asia to Anatolia, contact between the Iranian and Turkic languages covers a large geographical area; contact between the Kurdish and Turkish languages is at the western end of this continuum. Istanbul constitutes a special context where Kurdish speakers’ language practices and language mixtures are becoming increasingly complex. With several million speakers, this group stands out as an important element in the city’s multilingualism. The paper demonstrated some new perspectives for understanding the communication among bi/plurilingual Kurdish speakers in Istanbul. In this study, a two-pronged approach is adopted to establish the analysis of the discourses on multilingualism and heterogeneous language usages. Field research was conducted over a period of more than a year to collect the data presented in this study. The data are based on face-to-face interviews, some realized with a single person and others in groups. Through the use of open-ended questions, the interviews often took the form of casual conversation, allowing for more in-depth discourse and usage patterns to be collected. Depending on the nature and the content of the interviews, an ethnographic approach was adopted to interpret and analyze the discourses developed about multilingualism and multilingual usages, and the goal was to make the data speak for itself, in the light of the sociolinguistic concepts adopted. Thus, the analysis considers the interaction between language ideologies and the evaluation of plurilingual usages (epilinguistic discourse). In the concluding section, the perceptions of language mixtures especially as realized in verbs, the diversity of different approaches reflected in different languages, and how the plurilingual Kurdish-speakers have developed various discourses about their plurilingualism, considering the sociopolitical and historical context, will be discussed.
Les Représentations des Usages Plurilingues des Kurdophones et Leurs Approches au Plurilinguisme
De l’Asie centrale jusqu’à l’Anatolie, le contact des langues iraniennes et turciques couvre une zone géographique assez large ; le contact entre le kurde et le turc se situe à l’extrême ouest de ce continuum. Istanbul constitue un contexte spécifique pour les kurdophones où les pratiques langagières et les usages mixtes se complexifient. Avec plusieurs millions de locuteurs, ce groupe contribue au paysage plurilingue de la ville. L’objectif de cet article est d’ouvrir des perspectives sur l’appréhension du contact chez les kurdophones bi/plurilingues à Istanbul. Pour ce faire, une double approche est retenue dans les analyses portées sur les discours concernant la conception du plurilinguisme et l’hétérogénéité linguistique. Afin de récolter ces données, une enquête de recherche sur terrain a été menée pendant plus d’un an. Les données sont constituées à partir des entretiens faits face à face, parfois avec une seule personne, parfois en groupe. Il s’agit des entretiens qui ont souvent pris une forme de discussion grâce aux questions ouvertes. Suivant la nature et le contenu des données récoltées, une démarche ethnographique a été tenue dans les interprétations et les analyses des discours sur le plurilinguisme et les usages plurilingues ; l’objectif était donc de faire parler les données selon différents concepts théoriques du domaine de la sociolinguistique. Ainsi, les analyses tiennent compte de l’interaction entre les idéologies linguistiques et l’évaluation (les discours épilinguistiques) des usages issus de ressources plurilingues. Dans la conclusion, nous examinerons les perceptions des mélanges codiques particulièrement dans le domaine verbal, la diversité des approches reflétées dans les différentes langues et la manière dont les locuteurs plurilingues kurdophones ont développé divers discours sur leur plurilinguisme, en tenant compte du contexte sociopolitique et historique.
Introduction
Language contact, as described by Thomason (2001), “is the norm, not the exception” for all languages; many linguistic contact cases show a variety of specific sociopolitical, hence sociolinguistic settings. The contact between Kurdish and Turkish is one of them that also presents a more context-bound phenomenon in the largest city of the country, Istanbul. This language contact is placed at the westernmost end of the contact continuum between the Iranian and Turkic languages. Language contact has been investigated in two facades: one of them consists of a typological approach (which studies contact induced grammatical changes), and the other one, of a sociolinguistic approach (which studies plurilingualism in different scales by using the theoretical concepts developed in the literature). In this paper, our aim is to demonstrate some examples of borrowing, code-switching and code-mixing (as described in Cacoullos & Travis, 2021; Matras, 2011; Muysken, 2000; Thomason, 2001) in a typological/functionalist way, and to show, almost at the same time, the discourse developed by plurilingual Kurdish-speakers of Istanbul, analyzed in light of concepts such as epilinguistics (Canut, 1998 & 2000); language ideologies (Gal & Irvine, 2000; Silverstein, 1979). The principal research axis can be described as a better understanding of the sociolinguistic representations of the plurilingual usages induced by the contact case presented above. Therefore, speakers’ discourses are the main resource for the analysis; to obtain this interpretation, a two-pronged approach is privileged. Language mixing and alternating seem to have important significations for the speakers, so the conception of the language heterogeneity considering established and non-established borrowings from Turkish in speakers’ plurilingual usages present considerable phenomenon in their own discourse, reflecting different language ideologies within the group.
Method
From a methodological standpoint, a qualitative approach is particularly adopted; moreover, it incorporates ethnographic notions developed in other fields of the human and social sciences. These concepts have become increasingly important in recent studies of sociolinguistics since the 2010s, given the increase in mobility (linked to globalization) and migration (Blommaert & Rampton, 2011). Hence, the main goal here is to make the data speak for themselves: speakers are the social actors seen in a dynamic of language practices; their linguistic usages and discourses on languages and utterances evaluate, negotiate and transform sociolinguistic reality. According to this methodological approach, giving voice to the data was conceived as the essential element of this research to provide a better apprehension of this specific case of plurilingualism. In this way, we can imagine this sociolinguistic study of language contact as one of many to which we can compare it and thus arrive at interpretations and better management of plurilingualism in the world. For this reason, it seems more appropriate in the context of this article to set out the uses and discourses of the speakers, and then to present a part of the analysis based on both theoretical concepts and the data collected. In order to apply this methodological objective, which seems relevant to have a better description of the phenomenon presented above, semi-open-ended questions were asked to speakers in face-to-face interviews. These interviews often took the form of a natural discussion on the representation of plurilingualism and plurilingual usages, induced by the contact between Kurdish and Turkish.
Main Results
As a result, speakers have mixed representations of mixed usages, which are predominant in many plurilingual Kurdish speakers’ everyday speech. These mixed reviews demonstrate an epilinguistic tension within the group. Therefore, a variety of language ideologies can be identified: some speakers are more open to heterogeneous language usages, while others appear to be more tenacious in their discourse regarding the transmission of a homogeneous, purified, and well-preserved language, which might be considered a highly imagined entity in contrast to the reality of languages that cannot be excluded from the impact of language contact. Additionally, the mixed discourses of the speakers also show the representation of foreign languages compared to Turkish, which could thus be interpreted as their own language. This point also demonstrates the issue of determining language boundaries in such a complex sociohistorical language contact case, but in the context of this article, that point will not be developed here. Lastly, the discussion in this study aims to provide a new understanding of the representations of plurilingual Kurdish speakers about their own mixed usages, induced by contact between these two languages, in the context of Istanbul.
