Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Acculturation in Turkish Immigrants (eBook)

This book puts forward a new model of acculturation combining psychological, sociolinguistic and identity theories to study Turkish immigrants across the globe. The authors argue that such a multidisciplinary perspective is very important in understanding acculturation processes in migrants, particularly for pivotal aspects such as language and identity. Studying one group or several groups within a country is the most common methodological approach in acculturation studies. The authors argue on the basis of their extensive ethnographic work that focusing on one immigrant ethnic group across countries instead provides deeper insights into interactive acculturation orientations of both the receiving societies and immigrant groups. They therefore synthesize findings from their work on Turkish immigrants in Australia and several countries in Europe. Moreover, they include extensive accounts of acculturation across several generations of Turkish migrants, thereby giving readers insights into the long-term acculturation process. The book critically discusses language maintenance and shift, child-rearing practices and socialization beliefs, and educational achievement in Turkish immigrants, and uses a mixed-methods approach. It is meant for researchers and policy makers interested in acculturation and the role of the acculturation context.

Kutlay Yagmur is Professor of Language, Identity and Education at the School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He teaches courses on language learning and socialization, communication studies, intercultural communication and research methods. Yagmur has published around 200 articles in international journals and books mainly in the domain of sociolinguistics. His principal research interests are bilingualism, family language policy, language maintenance and shift, language policy, language use, language education, multilingualism, acculturation, research methodology, and testing and evaluation. He is a well-known sociolinguist working on Turkish immigration issues. He has coordinated a number of internationally known projects, e.g., Multilingual Cities Project and Language Rich Europe project, and is editorial board member of the journals Language Culture and Curriculum (Taylor & Francis), International Journal of the Sociology of Language (Mouton de Gruyter), and Area Editor for Turkish of Linguistic Minorities in Europe (Mouton de Gruyter). Yagmur is member of the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) Veni panel to evaluate project submissions.