Acceso usuarios
Bedrettin Yazan
As part of the process of nation–state construction, the Republic of Turkey went through a language reform which was comprised of (a) the supplanting of Arabic script with Latin letters adjusted for Turkish phonology and (b) the replacement of Arabic and Persian loanwords with words either derived from known Turkish roots or found in pre-Islamic Turkish texts. This top–down language policing practice was considered as a prerequisite for secularization, westernization, and modernization of the emerging Republic. Even though it was not always explicitly stated, the engineers of this emerging nation had the intention of breaking the cultural connection with the Ottoman past. Their ultimate goal was to generate a new linguistic order in the Turkish language, both in alphabet and lexicon, and to police the linguistic conduct of the country. This linguistic legitimacy and normativity was enforced through the entire body of state institutions. However, these policies encountered acute resistance from certain sectors of the public, especially those with conservative and religious ideologies. Utilizing Blommaert et al.’s (2009) notion of language policing as a conceptual apparatus and virtual ethnography/netnography (Hine 2000, 2005; Kozinets 2002, 2009) as a methodological approach, the current inquiry examined the textual and visual cultural artifacts produced, reconstructed, and disseminated in seven focal Facebook groups which have been created to maintain the use of Ottoman Turkish script and vocabulary. The recurrent themes centering on language policing in these virtual environments indicate that the postings are usually used to convince the group members that they need Ottoman Turkish to secure their ties and reconnect with their ancestors’ cultural heritage, to provide them with instructional support and practice opportunities, and to reach out to or align the group with macro language policing practices.
